100 Tales of Tokka
by Liberty Roth
Summary: Set through season 2 & 3. some AU. Tokka. Eventually there will be 100 chapters of Tokka goodness. From cute Tokka moments, confessions, future moments, private thoughts from Toph and Sokka... this epic collection will have it all.
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

**Intro:** This is a project that has been going on for a long time. It's called the 100 Themes Challenge. For more information on the challenge, check out the page I use: 100themeschallenge dot deviantart dot com

**This is not one huge continuing story****! **Each chapter is a tale of its own. Even though some chapters are connected in some way (Seeking Solace and Heaven, for example) each chapter can also stand on its own as a separate story.

Eventually there will be 100 Tokka stories here. Thanks for reading this – I know I'm boring with my explaining!

* * *

He still remembered the first day that he saw her. It was about a week after the whole swamp incident. When Aang had said something about seeing a girl in a dress that he was going to meet, Sokka had initially been relieved. _Finally_, he remembered thinking, _now he will stop drooling after my sister_.

But as he set eyes on the tiny blind girl, he found some different thoughts going through his head. Ones that (thankfully) had nothing to do with his sister.

"She can't really be blind. It's just part of her character, right?" Katara had asked.

Aang had seemed amazed by the tiny girl. "I think she is."

Sokka knew he had to say something. Katara and Aang almost seemed to wait for him to yell something similar to his previous yells of 'The Boulder knows how to put the hurt in the dirt!' He paused. "I think she is…" _Beautiful. Brave. Delicate. Determined_. "GOING DOWN!"

He couldn't understand why those words had slipped from his lips, but they had. He couldn't let Katara know that this tiny girl was so interesting to him. Or Aang. But Aang wouldn't notice. He was too enthralled with watching the tiny girl Earthbend.

And how she _Earthbended_. He had seen Earthbenders up close before, watching them manipulate their element around them. But it had been nothing like this. It was _never _like this. Aboard the metal Earthbender ship with Haru and his father, they had seemed to rely on brawn. Even the Boulder was huge, his muscles bulging with his every move.

She was different. Lean, small. She tried to hide it with her oversized clothes; they didn't give him any hint of the figure he knew must be underneath her clothes (wait – what? This was an _Earthbending_ tournament! He wasn't supposed to be thinking about girls! Especially such a small one who had to be _Aang's age_!) but her exposed legs didn't hide her pale, fair skin.

Her Earthbending style was different completely. It was amazing. Instead of relying on muscle force alone, she was different. So, so different. It enthralled him. He found himself leaning forward in his seat, watching her quickly eliminate the Boulder, launching him out of the fighting ring made of rock.

"Your winner, and still the champion, the Blind Bandit!"

Katara seemed to glance over at Sokka suddenly, almost surprised that he was saying nothing as the Boulder had just gotten beaten so quickly and by such a tiny girl. "No!" he yelled, just for her benefit.

Xin Fu held up a bag full of gold pieces in his hand, offering the follow challenge: anyone who could defeat the Blind Bandit would receive the bag and would be the new champion. Not a person in the crowd stood to accept the offer. He almost smiled. Everyone was too amazed by amazing skills to even _try_ –

"I will!" It was Aang who spoke. Aang accepted the challenge.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Sokka yelled towards Aang. "Go Aang! Avenge the Boulder!" But what he really meant was, 'Go Aang! Get her to teach you how to Earthbend so that I can meet her!"

He couldn't hear what the beautiful girl was saying to Aang, but he could see their lips moving. Mostly his eyes stayed on her lips, though occasionally they flickered to Aang's. Then back to hers almost immediately. She was enchanting.

"Boo! No talking!" he yelled, panic rising in him. Girls just flocked to Aang. From the _Aangy_ fan girls on Kyoshi to the Meng girl… He couldn't let this girl flock to Aang, too.

But she didn't. Aang beat her in the battle and she quickly disappeared behind a rock wall. Obviously she wasn't interested in talking to him. Relief now washed through him. "Way to go, champ!"

It turned out that the Blind Bandit was really a girl named Toph. Toph Bei Fong. He rolled her name around on his tongue a few times. Toph. Sokka. Toph. Sokka. Toph Sokka. Tophsokka. If he said it fast enough, it sounded like _tough, Sokka_. But it wasn't tough. He was determined to convince her to travel with them so he could get to know her better. Oh, and to teach Aang Earthbending. Maybe. If she had time left over after talking with him. But only under close supervision; Aang trained without a shirt. He would get Katara to do that. She was a pain in the butt sometimes, it wouldn't be hard to tell her to watch Toph train Aang.

As time went on and the Day of Black Sun quickly approached, he was amazed by how entranced he became with her. She was… amazing. More than amazing. She was fearless. She didn't take his sarcasm; she shot back with her own comebacks. They always made him grin on the inside, though he would never openly let her know that he enjoyed it.

She also made him forget the pressure they were all under. Train the Avatar. Defeat the whole Fire Nation. Become a hero. Do it by this certain time. Stick to the schedule. Train the Avatar. Defeat the Whole Fire Nation. Become a hero. Do it by this certain time. He found that she broke the repetitive pattern of thoughts he was always having. When he was talking with her, time flew by. When she was away training with Aang or having a girls' day out with Katara (when they had returned to camp, he had been forced to hide his glazed eyes of amazement by saying he was going to go wash their cooking utensils) he found that time moved so slowly. He would get worried and start bothering Appa or Momo. 'Don't you think they should be back by now? Where is she? Should I go? Should I take my boomerang?'

He sighed. This girl was messing up his internal clock. He was head over heels, though he was forced to hide it. If there was one rule about dating that he knew had to be followed, it was this:

You never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, _ever_ dated girls that you had to face every day. Especially not ones that could detect your lies and increased heartbeats.


	2. Chapter 2: Love

Chapter Two: LOVE. Set after Sokka's Master but before the Runaway.

* * *

Love. Love. Love love love love. Love. And then some more love.

Toph had always heard a lot about love. From panda lilies to the Cave of Two Lovers, the original members of the small group travelling with the Avatar had shared with her the tales of some of their adventures before she had met them. She noticed a lot of them had to do with love.

But what was love, exactly? Toph wasn't sure she knew. She knew her parents loved her and that's why they had protected her. She loved her parents, even though she had been frustrated with them continually thinking she was helpless. But that wasn't romantic love… the kind of love that came with lovers. Nevertheless, Toph decided she loved a lot of people in a lot of different ways.

"Do you remember Chong?" Katara's laughter echoed around their camp, mixed in with the crackling sounds of the fire that they were all gathered around.

Aang's laughter, light and cheery, joined in with hers. "I know Sokka does!"

She tuned them out as she dove further into her thoughts. Her head tilted towards Katara as she mentioned someone named Jeong Jeong. She decided she loved Katara, too. Not in a romantic way, oh no. Only Aang loved her that way – Toph could tell he did just because of how his heart rate changed around her. She loved Katara in a big sister or mother way. She looked after Toph and made sure she wasn't screwing up her life too much.

Aang. Hmm. She loved Aang, too. It was impossible to not love Aang. His enthusiasm for life was infectious. His joy was everyone's joy. His sorrow was everyone's sorrow. She remembered the look he had given her as he accused her of not trying to save Appa. That had hurt. But she understood it was only because he loved Appa so much…

There was a lot of love in the world.

"What about you, Toph?" Aang's voice reached her through her thoughts and she rubbed her nose.

"What?"

Sokka spoke, clearing his throat. "We were talking about places we've been and people we've met. What place has been your favorite place?"

She spoke without thinking. She wanted to stop talking and return to her epiphany on love. "That town with Piandao."

They were all quiet for a moment, thinking. Katara was the one who spoke first. "Why? It was really boring without Sokka."

Toph leaned back into the dirt, picking her nose and flicking it towards a tree. "It made you appreciate him more." Of course she didn't say, 'It made _me _appreciate him more.' She couldn't say that.

Katara almost seemed offended. "It made _me _appreciate him more? What are you – "

"Okay, okay," Aang said, acting as peacemaker between Toph and Katara. He pulled his legs up to his chest. "New question."

"Who have you been most happy to have met?" It was Sokka who spoke now, his voice curious. But behind the curiosity there seemed to be some other emotion that Toph couldn't identify.

"You." She spoke without thinking again and felt her cheeks start to heat up. "Guys. You guys. Without you guys, I'd be stuck back in Gaoling being a pampered rich girl by day and the Blind Bandit by night."

"The tournament wasn't held at night," Aang pointed out.

She coughed, shaking her head. "That's – "

"Not the point. The point is that without us, she'd still be unhappy." Sokka finished her sentence for her and she had to hold back a smile.

She decided she loved Sokka, too.


	3. Chapter 3: Light

Yes, yes, I am very hypocritical. I talk about how cliché Drunk!Sokka is, yet here I am… writing my own Drunk!Sokka fic. Heh. Don't tell me how hypocritical I am, just read. XD

CHAPTER THREE: Light.

* * *

"Oh! Look at the sunset, Toph!" Sokka cooed as his feet dangled off the edge of a cliff just outside of the city the Avatar's group was staying in. A bottle of a sweet, mind-clouding substance was hanging loosely from his fingertips.

"Don't drop your bottle," Toph ordered from her spot next to him. It was her job to baby sit Sokka today. Instead of being able to practice Earthbending on the appealing stretch of red-colored clay she had seen outside the city, she was stuck here with the nearly perpetually drunk Sokka.

Sokka hiccuped, looking at his bottle as though he had just realized it was there. "I'm not gonna drop – drop it," he told her, though he looked over the cliff edge. "How come I shouldn't drop it?"

"Because if you drop it off of the cliff, it'll probably land on someone down there." She waved her hand towards the cliff edge.

He peered over the edge, rocking dangerously. Toph's hand shot forward, clutching a fistful of his blue shirt as she tugged him away from the ledge. "Stop it."

"Naw, I'm serioush," he told her, nudging her in the shoulder. "There's nobody down there. Can't you see the – the grass?"

She sighed, standing. She made a chopping motion with her hand and a rock shot up from underneath Sokka, forcing him on his feet. "Get going."

"You can't shee it, can you?" he hiccuped. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he started shuffling along, a few feet away from the cliff edge. "Cause – cause you're blind."

"Really?" she asked, taking his role of the sarcastic person in the group. "Gee, thanks, Sokka, for noticing that."

"Wellllllll," his voice was high pitched as he squeezed out the first word of his sentence. It hurt her ears. "That's not the first thing I noticed about you that one day."

She scowled as they walked, holding onto his arm to steady him as he tripped over his own feet. "What day?"

"That one day. You know what I'm talking about." He accused, burping loud enough to get a couple stares from the few people who were around.

"We're in _public_," she scoffed, shaking her head.

"Show?" he asked her, slurring his words again. "Doesn't matta. You burp and stuff. That's what I like about you, Toph!"

She sighed, watching him fall onto the ground in his drunken state. "You like that I burp? What?"

"Naw," he said, waving a hand at her. "I like that you're not concerned about apprea-appa-apreance-"

"Appearances."

"Yeah, that!" he agreed, watching her sit down next to him.

"Well, when you can't see, I don't know what I look like."

"You got black hair," he said, catching a strand of her hair and holding it against the sunset. "Yue had white hair. It was the color of the moooon."

She stayed quiet for a moment, before tilting her head in his direction. "What color do you see when you close your eyes?"

Sokka closed his eyes for a second, before opening them. "Right now I see red, cause the shun is goin' down and the light makes my eyelids red."

"The sun?" she echoed. "What color is the sun?"

"It's really bright, I don't wanna look at it cause it hurts my eyes."

"Bright. Right."

"Yeah, cause of all the light!"

She scowled again, standing. "I'll never understand the colors."

He stood, clumsily knocking into her. She stumbled slightly, though he wrapped his arms around her to steady her. "It's okay." He mumbled into her hair.

"And – and why is it okay?" she murmured, nearly being smothered by his warm chest. She couldn't understand why her cheeks were starting to warm.

He pressed his lips against her hair briefly before pulling away. He offered her his arm, grinning in his drunken stupor. "Cause the only color you need to know…" A lock of her hair was suddenly between his index finger and thumb. "Is black."

"What – "

"When I close my eyesh…" he said, closing his eyes as they walked. He continued to stumble even more for a moment, before he opened them. "I shee black."

"So? Why is black the only color I need to know?"

"Caush when I close my eyes I see black. Show I think of youuuu. It's the only color I need to know, shee. The other colors don't matter cause they don't make me think of you."

She laughed, shaking her head. "I bet I'm pretty lucky that you won't remember any of this in the morning, huh? I'll say something about the color red and you'll have no idea how I know my colors. You'll be amazed."

He rubbed his eyes sleepily. "I'm already amazed by you. And I don't need to remember this. Cause I liked you before I got drunk and saw the pretty shun."

"I thought you liked the moon."

He sighed, pinching the bridge on his nose. "I _dooo_. But the moon is sho far away, and I don't wanna walk that far…"

"So?" she asked, urging him onward.

"Sho I like the shun, too." He murmured, bumping his head against hers as they walked. "You're the shun, Toph. You're the shun."


	4. Chapter 4: Dark

CHAPTER FOUR: Dark.

This is my least favorite of all the 100 Theme Challenge themes. Bah humbug.

* * *

Even after the Avatar defeated the Fire Lord, the group still couldn't quite manage to settle down. After travelling for so long and helping people, it felt weird to try and sleep in the same bed every night. It felt weird to be sleeping in a bed at all. It wasn't long before the Gaang slowly broke up, heading off in their own direction to go help people.

Katara and Aang had gone to some of the poorer Earth Kingdom towns to help them rebuild from the war. Zuko had gone back to the Fire Nation (though he promised he would write to everyone, as long as they wrote to him. Or, in Toph's case, had Sokka write out a message for her.) And that left Toph and Sokka to take their time and travel wherever they wanted to.

Usually they helped some towns recover from the Fire Nation. Today they were actually in a Fire Nation town, trying to help the towns people recover a bunch of tax money that had supposedly been hoarded away by soldiers. According to the residents, they had been forced to pay money for war supplies. Every week a soldier would stop by their house and demand money, before he would squirrel it away in an underground lair. One day, the underground storage lair had collapsed and the soldier hadn't been heard from since.

Now, originally the town folk had been happy about it. They assumed they would be getting their gold pieces back, because now the war was over and all that money could be theirs again. But as it turned out, the soldier hadn't told anyone where he was keeping the money. That's where Toph and Sokka came in.

Toph stomped her foot against the cobbled street, ignoring the stares she could tell she was getting from the merchants. She heard their whispers. _Blind? How can she help us? _She ignored it.

Sokka stretched in the sun, patting his sword sleepily. "Have you found it yet?"

She scowled in the sun, crouching to press her palm against the cobblestones. "I know I've told you this before, but it's not as easy as it looks." She muttered. She could feel the heat from the sun directly overhead burning her cheeks. Stupid Fire Nation. Everything was hot here.

"Sorry. Can you feel anything at all?" he spun around in a circle, idly waiting for her to finish her work. He was the cut stuff up guy. He wasn't the locate stuff underground guy.

"Always," she muttered, nodding. "I just have to separate the stuff that's supposed to be there from the stuff that's not supposed to be there."

Sokka nodded. He stood next to her, gazing around the town as he waited for her to finish. It didn't take long. She stood suddenly, pointing in a direction away from the town. "It's over there."

The Water Tribe boy sprung into action. He started running, pulling Toph along with him. "Come on, Toph!"

She scowled, dragging her heels in the dirt. She was actually dragging them _in _the dirt using her Earthbending. It wasn't long until Sokka stopped pulling her and gave her an exasperated look.

"What? It doesn't matter if we run or not. There was a _cave _in, Sokka."

He frowned as she started walking. "So? The soldier could still be alive!"

Toph scowled again, suddenly stopping in a field a couple hundred yards away from the town. "There aren't any heartbeats down there." She muttered, taking an Earthbending stance.

Sokka nodded gravely, watching her Earthbend a hole in the ground like she had during their take down of the metal drill outside of Ba Sing Se. "Alright. Could you punch some sky lights in the top of the tunnel, so I could see?"

Toph shook her head as she took his hand, pulling him into the dark hole. "Not unless you want the top to cave in."

"Alright. I guess I'll have to hold your hand, then."

There was a pause in the darkness as Toph decided whether or not she was offended. "_Have_ to hold my hand?" she asked, deciding that she _was _offended by that. "I didn't realize it was such an awful thing."

Ohhhh, crap. Sokka almost smacked his forehead. Being trapped underground with an angry Earthbender wasn't a good idea. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Sure you didn't." she muttered.

"Toph, don't get mad at me." He ordered. There had been enough fights on all of their adventures; he didn't want _another _one!

"You sounded like you didn't want to hold my hand, like it was some sort of _torture_."

He scowled, squeezing her hand as they walked. "I want to hold your hand. Trust me, okay?"


	5. Chapter 5: Seeking Solace

Five: Seeking Solace.

* * *

"Miss Bei Fong, you have a visitor."

Toph scowled as one of her assistants dragged red lip paint across her lower lip. "Tell them to go away."

The servant who had informed her of her visitor bowed slightly as he backed out of her room. "Yes, Miss Bei Fong."

"Call me Toph!" she yelled after him, but by then he was already scurrying down the hall towards the waiting room.

She sighed. She hated living back at her parent's house. It wasn't as high security as it had been before, when she had been the Blind Bandit _and _Toph Bei Fong. But her parents still insisted that she got dressed up every day. _In case of visitors, _they had told her. Now, even when she had a visitor, she turned them away.

There was only a handful of people she wanted to talk to. They were all hundreds of miles away from her. The closest was Sokka, who had been living in Kyoshi as far as she knew. She had no idea if he was still there. Nobody wrote to her anymore… mostly because it took her a long time to write back. Aang had made them believe that they would all stay friends forever. She guessed they were still friends. But seven years after Sozin's Comet, it was hard to believe that they were.

Everyone had been busy. They had all split up, gone to take care of business and set things right in their home nations. Although the friendships were still there, they had faded into gray.

"Miss Bei Fong?" the servant asked, reappearing in her doorway.

She licked her lips, earning her a _humph _from the servant who had just spent five minutes meticulously applying her lip paint. "Yes?"

"The visitor… he will not leave. He insists on seeing you."

She hopped down from the stool she had been standing on as her servants had been tying various parts of her robes. "When I want someone to leave, I _want _them to leave."

The black haired teenager marched down the hallway, her hair falling into her face like it used to do when she had been travelling with the Gaang. Suddenly, she stopped. She recognized those footsteps that were pacing in her waiting room. She recognized the meteorite sword. But, most of all, she recognized the…

"Ponytail!" she gasped, running into the waiting room and promptly crashing into the visitor in a very un-Toph liked gesture. She hadn't seen him in… what? Six years? Since the reunion at Omashu, probably.

He patted the top of her head awkwardly. "Hi, uh, Toph…" he muttered. She pulled away from him, smoothing down her hair and robes.

The Water Tribe man looked different than she remembered. The first thing that she noticed was his lack of smile. His face was sober and strained. He looked… haggard and tired. More tired than a 23-year-old should look.

"Are you alright?" she demanded, her face boring into his chest. Even after all of those years, she was still shorter than he was. Sure, she had grown. But not by much. He was still taller than she was. "You're… different."

"So are you," he muttered, pulling away to look at her. "I'm… I thought I'd stop by on my way to the South Pole… I didn't know if you'd be here or not, but I thought… you know, worth a shot."

"Yeah," she muttered, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. "I'm still here. I traveled for a while, but it's hard to travel when you don't have any money."

He half-smiled at that, though it was a shadow of the old Sokka smile. "The Runaway? Not having any money? I thought you were good at tricking people."

She scowled, sitting down on one of the wooden benches that adorned their waiting room. She was pleased to notice that Sokka dropped down next to her with a sigh. "Yeah, I _am _good at it. That's the problem. Word got around about the tricky blind girl… I kind of got banned from ever doing it."

"Why didn't you just get a job? Even Zuko worked in a tea shop, once."

"Nobody hires a blind girl, Sokka."

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest as silence fell over the two.

This was strange. They were friends. They shouldn't have been so awkward. Normally the conversation was great between her and Sokka. Today it was flat and stale from not seeing each other for seven years. Maybe that wasn't it, though. He seemed sad… Though Toph had no idea why. "Is – " she began to say, wanting to ask him if everything was all right between him and Suki.

"My dad died." He said suddenly, his voice a monotone, except near the end of his sentence. It cracked, as though his throat had a lump in it. She imagined it probably did… he had been close to his dad after the Comet.

Toph stayed silent for a moment, before she wondered what she should do. Katara would have touched him. Maybe hugged him or just touched his shoulder to know that she was there. Some kind of contact. The Earthbender hesitated, before placing her hand on his. "I'm sorry."

"Me too, Toph… me too…" he muttered, his voice still flat.

She paused, pressing her lips together. "How?"

"He was sick."

"Katara couldn't – "

"No. She tried to. Couldn't. Didn't help much. Kept him alive longer, but… in the end, didn't matter much…" he whispered, pressing the palm that wasn't covered by hers against his blue eye to absorb the moisture.

"I'm sorry." She said after a moment. She didn't know what else to say.

He nodded, understanding that this was her way of comforting him. He appreciated it. They sat in silence for a long while.

Eventually, Toph got to thinking. He said he had been visiting her on her way to the South Pole… but Kyoshi Island was south of Gaoling. It was an out-of-the-way visit. Why would he do that? Her heart leapt at the idea that maybe he just did it to see her, but she wasn't so sure.

"Kyoshi Island is south of here," she said quietly.

Sokka pressed his lips together, curling his fingers tightly around hers. "Yeah, it is. I wasn't at Kyoshi Island."

Wait, wait. That made no sense. "I thought you were living there."

"I was." He said, pointedly using the past tense.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Did you…? Or did she…?" She trailed off, not wanting to directly ask him the question that was on her mind.

He paused. "She did. But it felt right. Us… breaking up, I mean. I feel like a jerk saying that, but it's true."

Toph let her fingers trail over the top of his hand. "If it's true, you shouldn't feel like a jerk saying it, Sokka."

"I guess so," he said with a sigh. "I was heading to see you anyway, when the letter came… I felt bad about not writing to you for so long."

Toph nodded, before she stood. Since her hand was connected with Sokka's (and he hadn't dropped it when she stood) he was pulled up as well. She silently moved down the hallway and into her room. "Where's everybody else at?"

"Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko are in the Fire Nation. Even though Ty Lee and Mai only met my dad briefly at the reunion all those years back… they're still coming."

Toph started pulling clothes into a bag. "Aang?"

"He's already at the South Pole."

"Oh."

"No. Not like that. He was at the Southern Air Temple. He got there fast with Appa." Sokka said it with a clenched jaw, as though he wasn't willing to believe that his sister and the Avatar were… living together.

"Oh."

"Mmm-hmm. What are you doing?" he asked finally, peering over her shoulder to look at the almost full bag.

"Packing."

He surveyed the huge amount of clothing that she was bringing. "You're only going to be there for a couple days."

"Someone needs to stick around to make sure you don't jump off a glacier." She explained. That brought a real smile to his face as he shook his head.

"You don't have to do that."

"I… want to." She said, almost sounding surprised.

She _was _surprised as he pulled her into a tight hug. "Suki's coming, too… But she won't be there with me…" Toph felt something soft press into the top of her head. His lips.

"I'll be there with you, though, Sokka."

He smiled against her hair, tightening his grip around her. "You always are."

* * *

Whew, that was a long one. But I liked writing it. Older!Sokka is sad cause his dad died and Suki broke up with him. But he'll get better, because Toph's there for him. xD


	6. Chapter 6: Break Away

Six: Break Away

It was super hard to come up with something, because my mind just kept screaming that Kelly Clarkson song at me.

Also, random. I had a dream that I was Katara yesterday. Jet, Aang, Sokka, Toph, and I were all swimming in my swimming pool. We kept battling it out, but in a playful way. I totally owned everyone cause we were in water… but then I looked at the pool ladder and on one of the steps it said, 'Lake Laogai' and I (Katara) started crying because that was when Jet should have died… but he was all alive and older and muscle-y and shirtless… It was… awesome…

ANYWAY. STORY TIME, CHILDREN.

* * *

Sokka bit his lip as he approached his father's tent. He pulled the tent flap aside, stepping into the warm room. Hakoda looked up as the wind from outside made his fire shiver. Immediately a smile broke across his lips, though it faded as he noticed Sokka's somber expression.

"Dad, we need to talk."

"About what, Sokka?" he asked slowly, setting aside the map he had been looking at.

Sokka sat down across from his dad, so that the fire was between him. "I think…" he began to say, but his lips went suddenly dry. He cleared his throat.

"Here," Hakoda said, handing him a cup full of a strong tea. Sokka drained it in one gulp, before handing it back to his father.

"Thanks."

"So what were you going to tell me?"

Sokka stood, pacing around the small tent. He raised a hand to his neck, rubbing it awkwardly. "Dad… I think… I need to leave."

Hakoda went back to his map. "For how long, son? Do you need a fleet on your journey?"

"No. I'm leaving." Sokka explained. His father's eyes softened, though the aged lines around his mouth were more visible now. He was older than he had been five years ago, when the comet had come, but he didn't look that different to Sokka.

"Leaving? For good?" Hakoda asked, folding his hands in his lap.

Sokka nodded slowly. "I don't… want… to be chief."

"You've always liked being a leader, Sokka. I think you'll do a great job. Your induction ceremony is a week away – it's normal to be nervous. I think you'll – "

"No. I'm not nervous, Dad." Sokka sighed, rubbing his head. "I've been reading over some of the older scrolls… about all the rules… and I don't want to be chief. I don't want to have to do everything the scrolls say I have to do."

"Rules can always be changed, I'm sure we could – "

A sigh escaped the younger man's lips. "Not this one."

"… which rule are we talking about?"

"The marriage one." He said quietly. He could remember the sentence very clearly. _The chief may only wed a woman of Water Tribe heritage._ That was problematic.

"Oh. I'm sure we could change it, Sokka… Somehow, we could get Suki to – "

Sokka laughed slightly, sitting down across from his father again. "No, Dad. Not Suki."

"I liked Suki…" The chief muttered, a grumble forming in his chest. He had admired the girl's spirit and warrior skills.

"I know. So did I. But being away for so long just wasn't working out. She doesn't like the cold, either."

"That's a strange reason…" Hakoda muttered.

"I know," Sokka agreed, drumming his fingers against his knee. "But it's what she said."

"Which girl are we talking about?" The older man asked slowly, his voice careful as it probed into his son's personal life.

"Uhh… do you remember Toph?" Sokka said, his ears burning.

Hakoda smiled. "I had no idea you two were thinking of– "

"We're not… I mean, I've just been thinking ahead… And I don't want to be chief if I can't… marry her…" he muttered, his voice strained.

"… we can change the rules, Sokka. You're chief. You can do whatever you want. And I doubt that anyone will challenge you." Hakoda smiled, standing and pulling his son up into a tight hug.

"Alright. I just wanted to make sure… but I'm not even sure if she'll like the ice, here. She doesn't like wearing shoes." Sokka laughed, thinking of their Fire Nation disguises.

His father smiled again. "You can always abdicate. Pass it on to a close friend or a warrior."

Sokka brightened, nodding. "Thanks, Dad." He turned to leave through the tent, but a chuckle from his father made him stop.

"All this for some girl…" he said, amused as he sank down to his maps again.

"Not _some _girl… _the _girl."

* * *

The 'break away' has to do with Sokka willing to break away from his culture for Toph.


	7. Chapter 7: Heaven

Seven: Heaven.

LOL RHYME. This is meant as a continuation of Seeking Solace.

NOTE: Heaven was replaced with the Spirit World. Sorry. Some things have to be adapted, see. There is no heaven in the Avatar world... there's only the Spirit World.

* * *

She had never really known anyone that had died. When the pottery maker's son went off to war and did not return, it didn't make a difference to her. The only thing it changed was the topic at dinner. Instead of talking about how dreadfully smoky the horizon had been lately, her parents said things about how 'sad it was that he died at such a young age.' Her mother would nod, carefully taking a spoonful of her soup. 'He was serving his country… such honor.'

Toph had never known the pottery maker's son. She had never even known the pottery maker, himself. It didn't make a difference to her. She knew Sokka's dad, Hakoda, and when he died she felt sadness. Not only because the man who died was always very nice to her, but also because it made Sokka sad and lost. Toph had comforted Sokka as Aang had comforted Katara at the funereal. Zuko hung around with Mai and Ty Lee, looking somber in the background.

But now it was different. Because when your own father died, it was _your father. _It wasn't _Sokka's _dad or _the pottery maker's son. _It was a relative. A person Toph had known her whole life.

"How are you holding up?"

Sokka stepped out of the Bei Fong's house, into the garden. It had taken him a moment to locate Toph in the darkened courtyard, but he had found her below a large tree. She was sitting on a stone bench, her shoes off and her toes carefully pressed into the cool earth.

He handed her a glass of some drink that her mother had been serving to the people who were attending the funeral. "I…" she trailed off. She didn't like lying to Sokka. Things had been different since she had gone to his father's funeral. They were closer, now. "I don't know."

He looked at her for a moment, studying her.

"I'm not lying." She told him honestly, taking a drink out of her cup. "I… don't know how I should feel."

Sokka took a seat down next to her, noticing that her makeup had clean streaks from where her tears had rolled down her cheeks. "There's no set way you should feel. Just… feel. There aren't any rules for how you should feel when this – this happens."

She nodded, but kept her heart tight in her chest. _If I don't think about it, this hurt will go away, _she told herself, squeezing her cup a little too tightly. The fragile pottery shattered, covering the black-haired woman with a dark liquid.

"Toph – " Sokka said, standing so he wouldn't get the liquid on his shirt. He started to wipe the liquid off of her hand with a handkerchief he produced from somewhere in his pocket, before he stopped.

Her hand was shaking. No – _she _was shaking. Her shoulders were shaking as she silently cried. She lifted her dark purple hand (for the drink had been dark purple) and tucked her dark hair behind her ears. He noticed that her fingertips smeared the dark purple drink across her cheeks as she tucked her hair away.

"It's – it's going to s-stain – " she cried, standing.

He nodded, taking her hand and starting to walk towards her house. "Go inside. I'm sure you have more than one dress."

"No, I d-don't want to," she said firmly, rooting her feet into the ground with her Earthbending. She pointed in the direction of a pond. "There's a pond over there. I'll just g-go wash it off."

Sokka sighed, looking from her to the house. _Make her change into another dress! That one will stain and then it will be ruined, _said a voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Katara. _No… don't. She needs you. Just go take care of her, _said another voice that _also _sounded like Katara.

He looked at her. From her long hair that was falling into her face to the streaks of purple across her cheeks… from the clean tear lines across her makeup to the fresh tears that were ready to spill over from her eyes… they all spelled one thing out to Sokka: _Help. _It looked like Toph was asking for help. Silently. But definitely. It was in the way she had carried herself through the funeral. So carefully, as if she was walking on turtleduck egg shells. She looked… fragile.

_Not unlike me when I came to her after dad died… _he thought. He gripped her hand tightly, leading her over to the shallow pool. In the moonlight it was shining, but he could see the fish swimming around in it.

She stopped at the shore, before pulling off her headband and letting her bangs spill into her eyes. Next, she reached a purple hand around to tug at the base of her head. Faintly, he wondered what she was doing. In a moment his question was answered, as her black hair fell down past her shoulders and she produced a silver hairpin.

Wordlessly, she handed both the headband and the hairpin to him, before gently wading into the small pond. He watched her in fascination, his eyes never leaving her.

Toph walked into the middle of the pond, the water only going up to her waist. He watched as she leaned back into the pond, floating in the moonlight. Her black hair looked like ink on the blue velvet water. Small ripples appeared as her tears joined the pond water, even as she closed her eyes and tried to stop them.

"Uh, Toph," he said finally, breaking the ethereal spell that had come over the garden. "I think your mom will notice when you come into the house with your whole dress wet…"

"Doesn't matter." She said quietly, opening her eyes and standing. He noticed that the purple liquid that had been on her dress wasn't there anymore. Or maybe it was. Her whole dress was soaked, so he couldn't be sure. "I'll dry."

He nodded, handing her the hairpin and headband. She shook her head (spraying him with water) and spoke. "I'll just wear my hair down." She said, sitting back down onto the bench. "I'm not going to waste time by putting it up… everyone will be gone in an hour; I don't want to have to be dressed up anymore."

Sokka nodded again, joining her on the stone bench. "Okay." He took a swig of his own purple drink, sighing and rubbing his eye with his free hand.

They sat in silence for a long while, before Toph spoke. "Do you think there are blind people in the Spirit World?"

"Uhhhh…" Sokka trailed off, thinking. "I don't know. But I do know one thing."

"What?"

"There aren't any bathrooms." He said seriously, though Toph laughed slightly. He noticed that it sounded kind of forced, which didn't surprise him. She had just been crying a few minutes ago.

She tilted her head. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. Would I lie to you?"

She hesitated, before shaking her head. "No. But how do you know?"

"I was there." He told her, draining his cup. He held it in his hands, looking out at the garden. It seemed like it was forever ago that he had picked up that ransom note, exclaiming that he had the Boulder's autograph. "Giant angry spirit kidnapped me… it's a really long, really boring story."

"So you've been to the Spirit World… were there any blind people?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. There was a faceless monkey… I guess he was blind."

"Faceless?"

"Yeah. The Spirit World is a crazy place, Toph. It's really big. I'm sure there are blind people there. And if not…" he reached over, touching her chin and lifting it up. "You'll be the first one. The Runaway… goes to the Spirit World. It'll be a big adventure."

She nodded, smiling. "Thank you, Sokka… I appreciate it. And not just the story. This whole… day has been really crazy. I don't know how I would have gotten through it… without you…"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm pretty sure Katara's hope talk would _eventually _have the same effect. Might have taken a little longer, though. You could've been in that pond until winter."

Toph smiled again, hugging him with one arm as they sat. "No, I don't think it would have had the same effect. So… thank you."

One arm wasn't good enough for the Water Tribe Chief. He sat his cup on the edge of the bench, reaching around to hug her tightly. "Anytime," he breathed, pressing his lips to her forehead.

* * *

NO SPOILERS BELOW…

So, Avatar is over. I finished watching the finale about five hours ago. Sadface. It was epic, don't get me wrong. But Avatar is overrrr. SAAAAD. I know everyone, no matter what ship you support, will enjoy this last epic movie.


	8. Chapter 8: Innocence

What is this? Eight, now? Alright. Eight, then.

EIGHT: Innocence.

* * *

Sokka and Toph walked along the streets of Omashu; her in her green outfit and he in his dark blue water tribe clothing. They weren't the same clothes they had worn those five years ago when they had first met. Oh, no, definitely not. Teenagers had a tendency to grow a large amount in a very short time, so Sokka had needed to have someone sew him new clothing when he had shot up two inches and his shoulders had widened into those of a man. The tiny Earthbender was still smaller than he was, though she had also grown taller. She was still petite, though, but the sharp angles of her Blind Bandit outfit were softened by the curves of womanhood.

Speaking of womanhood… Sokka's eyes trailed after a couple of pretty specimens of women. As they passed them in the street, the women giggled and smiled and he noticed that even after the beautiful women were gone there was a wonderful, flowery fresh scent that remained.

"Pah."

Sokka had barely managed to catch the sound that escaped his friend's lips. _No, no, Sokka. Look at her eyes. Not her lips. _He told himself, tearing his gaze upward to her blank eyes. Her expression was so controlled that he wasn't even sure that the sound had come from her.

"_What_?" he asked, throwing his arms up. "I'm not allowed to look at girls?"

"You and Suki just broke up a week ago." Toph told him, a scowl settling onto her pale face. "Don't you think you should wait before you start lusting after women out of your league?"

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Since when did _Toph _use words like _lusting_? "Have you been talking to Katara again?" he accused her, pointing a finger in her direction. "Did she start spewing about how I need – "

"A steady girlfriend, yeah." Toph admitted, her shoulders slumping a little. "You and Suki are… insane. First she breaks up with you, then you get back together. Break up, date more people, back together. Now you've broken up _again. _It's a never ending cycle!"

Sokka crossed his arms over his chest. "Look, Toph, I appreciate Katara's concern, but it's fine. I'm fine with breaking up with Suki. To tell the truth, I'm tired of all this repeated breaking up. It's crazy. But I don't like Katara spewing all this stuff about what I _need._ Especially with you. You don't need to worry about all this stuff."

"Why would me being worried be any different than Katara being worried?"

"You're not my sister. And you're too young to be worried about – "

Toph was pleased that he didn't think of her as his sister, but she was also concerned about how he told her she was too young. "_What? _Sokka, I'm not twelve." She scowled at him.

He couldn't help but glance down at her figure. "I know," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Anyway, you shouldn't be looking at those girls. They're out of your league _and _they're useless. What you need is a girl like Suki, who was strong and could fight with you. I mean, you know. By your side."

Sokka shrugged. He tried to think of any girls he knew that were like that, but the image of Toph appeared in his mind and he could not shake it. "Yeah, but I don't want her to be _too _fight-y. I want to take care of her, sometimes."

"And you shouldn't just ask them out straight away. Get to know them, first." Toph pressed urgently, though Sokka couldn't quite understand why she was so interested in giving him advice.

A sudden thought struck him. "Why are _you _giving me advice?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've never even been on a _date_! Why are _you _giving _me _advice?"

"So what if I've never been on a date? It doesn't mean I'm some innocent little _kid, _Snoozles_._" He smiled. It had been years since she had called him Snoozles.

"Toph, have you ever been kissed?" he asked flatly, coming right out with the point.

She shrugged. "Not exactly."

"Yes or no?" he pressed.

"No."

"Then you shouldn't be giving me advice. I should be giving _you _advice." He said, an amused look on his face as they continued to walk down the streets of Omashu.

"Oh, yeah?" she asked him, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

"_Yeah._" He said in imitation of her.

"What kind of advice would _you _give _me _about dating? Carry lots of meat around with me so I can lure sarcastic men to me?" she laughed. It was still the same laugh that he had first heard at Earth Rumble Six all those years ago.

"I'd make you bring every interested guy to me. I would have to interview him and approve him. Get references, maybe. And no guys who have _any _earrings." He said flatly. "Ever."

"Would you ever let _any _guy date me?" she asked him, rolling her eyes at him.

"Only if he was good enough."

"So who makes the cut?"

"I would have let you date Aang. Or Zuko. Haru, maybe. You might chew him up and spit him out." He laughed and paused for a moment, as if picturing it. "Not the Duke. He's too young for you. He's just a kid."

"Okay. What are the qualities you would look for in a guy who dated me? Smart? Tall? Short?" she asked him, an expression he didn't recognize on her face.

"Hmm. Kind. But brave. Tall, definitely. If you two were _both _short your kids would have absolutely _no _chance. That'd be just cruel. I'd say – "

"Who said anything about _children!_"

"You'd have to have a future with him. I'm not going to let you waste your time with some guy just looking for a cheap date. Hmm. He'd be funny, to make you laugh. He'd stick up to you from time to time, so you wouldn't go mad with power."

Toph was silent for a moment, her cheeks flushing as she slowly churned around what he said in her head. "… Sokka?"

"Hmm?"

"You realize who you just described, right?"

His face went blank, then a slow flush crept across his face. "Uhhrnnrm."

"Sokka?"

"…yeah?"

She grinned. "Would you like to be my first kiss?"

"Unngmr." He said again, though this time he nodded his head just a fraction. He would. He had known Toph for years. He had fought many battles with her. He remembered tucking her beneath him for protection when debris was falling from the sky. He wondered why this had never come to him sooner.

He leaned towards her, but as he got close to her she grabbed his face and shoved him away. "Not _now. _I didn't mean _now._"

Sokka blinked. "Why not?"

"Because, Sokka. We've been _walking _in the _hot sun _for five days. I'm sunburned and my lips are chapped and dry. It wouldn't be a very good first kiss. You should wait until we get to Bumi's place. I'll get some, I dunno, salve or something and stick it on there and wait for them to heal so you won't have to – "

She was cut off as he suddenly pressed his lips to hers.

Toph had been right. Her lips were chapped and dry and cracked. But he couldn't remember ever having a sweeter kiss in his whole life. As he continued to kiss her on the side of the street, a scent rubbed his nose. Then it struck him… that amazing flowery scent hadn't been from the girls who they had passed. It had been… Toph.


	9. Chapter 9: Drive

NINE: Drive

This isn't a 'vroom vroom car' drive. It's a 'to progress with strong momentum' drive. Sokka drives towards Toph… and the _man _she's dating?

* * *

Katara ran a brush through her thick hair, taming the curls into what she thought was an acceptable hairstyle for a night out on the town. Or, rather, city. A Fire Nation city, more specifically. Tonight she was clad in the reds and golds of the Fire Nation colors, her hair long and in the style she had worn it in while they had been hiding in the Fire Nation all those years ago.

She heard the front door of the Gaang's shared house open. She grinned, slipping her mother's necklace around her neck. "Hey, sweet – " she started to say, but stopped as she saw who it was. "Sokka! Hi!" Katara said enthusiastically, a flush creeping across her cheeks.

"Um. Yeah." He said, pressing his palms into his eyes as if he could somehow destroy the memory of his sister starting to call him _sweetie. _"Who else would it be?"

"Oh. Um. No one." She muttered, rubbing the back of her neck as she walked back over to the mirror to keep combing her hair. "I was just heading out. Alone. By myself."

Sokka sighed. His sister was the worst liar in the history of the world. But he never bothered her about her lies. She always had a good reason for lying. Most of the time. She was probably destroying another factory on a river… _Oy. _"_Riiiight._" He told her, but then shook his head. "Look, is Toph here yet?"

"No. Just me." She told him, fluffing her hair over her shoulder. "Aren't you two going on your dinner things tonight like you do every week? What do you two talk about, anyway?"

"We talk about everyone else and whatever else we want to talk about." He said with a shrug. He looked impatient as he gazed at his sister. "Look. When she gets here, just tell her that I accidentally made other plans and I won't be able to go with her today."

"… Didn't you cancel on her last week, too?" Katara asked slowly, placing the pearly comb into the drawer.

"So? She understands."

"You canceled on her for a _date. _That didn't even work out. And now you're canceling _again_, Sokka."

He shrugged. "Listen, will you tell her?"

"No." Katara said flatly, grabbing some coins and depositing them into her pocket. Sokka followed her into the main living room, watching her pause at the door. "Tell her yourself. Here she comes."

"Katara…" Sokka groaned, flopping down into a chair and stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Toph looked rather cheerful as she entered the roomy house. She had some kind of paper in her hands, but he couldn't see what was on it. "Hey, Sokka! Listen, I heard from General Iroh that there's some kind of boat house around here. I went there this morning and bought some tickets so we could go on a boat. I know I won't be able to see anything, but I thought you might be able to – "

"Toph, I can't go with you tonight." He said, rubbing his neck awkwardly. She had obviously been looking forward to it; the disappointment was plain on her face for a half a second before she controlled it.

"Let me guess. You have a _date_." Her tone was disapproving, mixed with disbelief and a little… jealousy?

He shrugged, feeling his ears heat with his embarrassment. "Yeah."

"That's two weeks in a _row _you've canceled. And there were at least four times before _that_." She muttered.

He didn't understand what the big issue was. "But we always reschedule for the day after, or maybe a day after that." He said, shrugging.

"You shouldn't be rescheduling for some girl you randomly met. I'm tired of you canceling on me over and over. I thought our friendship was better than that." She muttered, marching over to him. She tossed the two slips of paper that reserved their spot on a boat in his face, before turning towards the door. "I guess I don't mean as much to you as the floozies do, Sokka."

"You do, Toph, it's just that I – " he started to say, but was cut off as she turned back to him.

"No. I'm tired of waiting for you to stop canceling on me and stop being so… so _blind_!" she said with a little stomp of her foot, turning on her heel and promptly marching out of the door.

Sokka watched her go, his expression pulling into a scowl. He looked away, staring at their fire pit. What did she mean, _blind_? She was the blind one, not him!

"She's right, you know. You have no idea." A quiet voice came from the doorway that Toph had just exited. The Water Tribe boy looked and his gaze met the Fire Lord's.

"Have no idea about what?" Sokka demanded. Zuko just shrugged, shaking his head.

"I promised I wouldn't tell. Anyway – is your sister here?"

"No… she said she was going out." He said, thinking of his conversation with Katara. 'Hey, sweetie,' was what she had started to say. Sokka shuddered, standing. "You two…"

"What?" Zuko asked innocently, though his cheeks flushed. "You can go see the city with Toph, but I can't do it with Katara? I mean – I can't _see the city _with her!" he clarified, seeing Sokka's expression change into one of outrage. "I'm just going out with her! I mean, _no_! I'm just _walking _around with – "

Sokka scowled, standing and heading for the door. His shoulder brushed Zuko's on the way out. "Katara turned left when she left the house. There's some tickets for a boat ride on the floor if you want them."

* * *

"I can't even _believe _he would cancel on me _again!_" yelled Toph, promptly stomping her feet into the streets of the Fire Nation city. Ripples appeared in the earth as she used her Earthbending to increase her stomps. "What a _jerk_!"

"You're not talking about Zuko, are you?" the tiny girl promptly turned around, though she knew who it was even before she 'saw' him. Those floaty footsteps were one of a kind.

"No! Why would I be talking about _him_?" Toph asked. Aang's eyes wandered over her scowl and he almost flinched. Toph in a bad mood was _not good_.

He shrugged, though he watched her to make sure she wasn't going to slam him into a wall or anything. "Jerkbender, remember? When he first joined our group, Sokka called him – "

"Don't mention Sokka to me right now, okay?" she muttered, starting to walk down the street. Aang paused for a moment, before lurching after her.

"Why?"

"Because he's so… so – "

"Oblivious to your feelings." Aang finished for her. Toph looked surprised as she opened her mouth and then shut it, a flush creeping across her face.

"You know?"

"I understand, yeah. I liked Katara, remember?"

"Oh, right. Your first crush, Twinkle Toes."

"Yeah."

They fell into silence as they walked. Several people came out of their houses or shops to wave to the Avatar and his blind friend.

"So what do I do about Sokka?"

"I don't know… does he know that you like him? I made sure Katara knew that I liked her."

The Earthbender shrugged. "I don't know. But how do I know if he likes me?"

"You…" Aang trailed off, scratching his smooth head. "I don't know. You could – "

Suddenly, Toph's face lit up. "I could make him jealous!"

"Uhh, I didn't say – "

"I could ask out another boy and this time _I _could cancel on Sokka!"

"Toph, I don't know if that's such a good – "

"Thanks, Twinkle Toes! You're brilliant. Now, I only need to find a guy to fake date… It'll probably have to be someone I know. Zuko's in town, but he's with Katara… Hmm."

"_Zuko's _with _Katar – _" Aang started to exclaim, before Toph clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Yes." Toph said calmly, pulling her hand away from Aang's mouth. A look of concentration was on her face, before a wide grin broke across it. "Hey, Twinkle Toes…"

"No, Toph!" he groaned.

* * *

The week after Toph had marched out of the Gaang's house hadn't been a very nice one. Every time Sokka had seen her, his presence had been met with a frosty shoulder and a scowl. _Fine. If she doesn't want to apologize, then I won't, either. _He told himself, though he missed talking with her. He hadn't realized how much she helped him sort out his problems, until she wasn't talking with him anymore.

_Alright, okay. _He told himself at last, watching her practice her Earthbending in the courtyard outside. He knew it was a danger zone, since she was in here element here… literally. "Hey, Toph?" he called, stepping into the courtyard.

She said nothing, but her lips spread into a tight line so that he knew she had heard him. Toph was currently making little waves of rock on the ground. They were so smooth, they looked like water.

"I wanted to say that I'm, um, sorry. I've been taking advantage of your friendship and… I didn't know how much I depended on you until you weren't there." He said quietly, humbled by her steady gaze and the unforgiving expression on her face. "Are we still going to go out in the city today? Like we, um, always do. Most of the time…" _When I don't cancel…_

Toph shrugged, the earth sliding back into place. "I'm busy."

_She just wants to make me beg, doesn't she? _"Seriously, Toph, I'm sor-"

"Seriously, Sokka," she mocked him, the scowl still on her face. "I'm busy. I have a… a date."

He watched a flush creep across her normally pale cheeks. "What?" he asked flatly. She couldn't have a date. This was _Toph. _She wasn't _datable. _And yet… he took a step back, taking in her appearance. Her hair was shiny and sleek, her skinny body had filled out and now she actually looked like a girl instead of the scrawny Blind Bandit.

"I have a date." She repeated, her voice stronger this time.

"With who!" he demanded. Who would _date _her? Who would _take her away _from him? She was supposed to be _his Toph_! His friend who he shared his problems with! What was he supposed to do without her? Was he supposed to _share _her with this new guy? He felt a strange anger come from his chest, something he hadn't ever felt before. He immediately hated the unnamed man she was going on a date with.

She shrugged. "Aang."

Relief washed through him. "Oh, okay. Then it's not a _real _date, okay. I thought you were actually _dating _someone – "

"I _am_ dating him!" Toph yelled defiantly.

"Yeah, but it's _Aang_! You two aren't going to start _making out _or anything! It's just a friendly date!"

Her expression suddenly cooled as she turned towards the house. "Aang's here. I have to go." She told him, and he could almost feel the ice in her tone.

"How can you know?"

"I'm _Toph. _I can feel him." Sokka's cheeks flared as her words brought an image of her _feeling _Aang, the two making out somewhere in public. He shook it from his head, not quite sure why he was feeling angry at Aang all of a sudden.

"Be careful, Toph!" he warned. "Don't do anything stupid!"

"Oh, Sokka, relax," she cooed, suddenly stopping from the doorway to give him a grin. "I'm going to go out with him. You stay here and try to not worry about him and me. He's the Avatar. He's responsible."

Her words cooled his thoughts a little, but he wasn't so sure. After all, Aang had girls _flock _to him. He was the world's most eligible bachelor. What if Toph…

No. No. It's just a one time thing, Sokka. They'll go on their date and they'll have fun. They'll come back home and realize that they're just friends. Then you'll have Toph again.

But he could not shake the feeling. As the night progressed on, he found himself start to pace the Gaang's house. His heart rate was increasing, his anxiousness driving him to bite his nails. Where were they? Weren't they supposed to be back by now? He exited the house, pulling the door shut behind him. If they weren't coming home, he'd just have to look for them.

He nearly ran down the many streets of the city, watching officials light the street lamps with Firebending. "Hey, kid, stop running!" one of them yelled as he nearly ran into them.

"I'm not going to stop running!" he yelled in return as he sprinted down the streets. Finally, he found them. Or, at least, he found Aang. The Airbender was alone, strolling down the streets and looking at some of the trinkets the street venders were displaying.

Sokka wasn't sure what came over him. As the teenager came into view, he felt anger rise in him. How dare he take Toph? Of all the girls in the city, he had to pick Toph. Sokka's Toph. The next thing he knew, he had a grip on the teenager's collar, his back pressed against one of the Fire Nation buildings.

"Sokka, what are you doing?!" Aang asked, quickly shoving the Water Tribe teen away with a blast of air. "What's wrong?!"

"This! This is what's wrong!"

"What are you talking about?" The Airbender asked, his gray eyes wide.

"You took Toph! Of all the girls in the world, you had to pick her!" he told him, shaking his head. It was strange. It had never mattered to him, canceling on Toph… but he had always taken her for granted. Now, the second she canceled on him, he was furious and hurt and… he didn't know what else to call all the emotions inside of him.

It struck him that that was probably exactly how Toph had felt all those times he had canceled on her.

"Sokka, he didn't pick me," Toph was there, suddenly, a slightly angry look on her face. "I picked him. I mean, I didn't pick him, he's just doing me a favor."

"… what?" Favor? What was she talking about?

"You're always so… oblivious. You always think that I should be there for you when you need me. Well, you cancel when I need you. Last week, when I bought the boat tickets, I was planning on telling you that… that I liked you. And you just canceled! So I thought I'd make you feel as crazy as I feel whenever you cancel on me..."

He couldn't believe it. She was doing this to make him crazy? And yet… he felt relieved. She wasn't dating Aang. Was she? "Are you dating Aang?"

Aang was the first one to speak, almost laughing. "No, of course not!"

Sokka turned, scowling. "Why? What's wrong with dating her?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with dating me?" Toph demanded, a boulder popping out of the ground and shooting towards Aang. He easily deflected it towards the ground, where it absorbed back smoothly.

"Nothing! Nothing's wrong with dating you! You're very, er, pretty! And, um, talented!" Aang muttered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "And, uhh… your hair is…"

"Keep going, Twinkle Toes." She told him, looking like she was enjoying the praise.

"… and your hair is amazing. Your eyes are incredible, too, when you look at me it's like you're seeing right through me…" Sokka took over, speaking softly to her. "I never knew you liked me, Toph. I was so… so – "

"Blind." Toph finished for him, grinning. It was that grin that made him want to kiss her. He remembered the first time he had seen that grin, when she had been taunting the Boulder. He wanted to see it every day for the rest of his life. In a single motion, he reached down and pressed his lips to hers.

"I'm sorry I'm so blind," he muttered after a moment, pulling away and resting his forehead on hers.

"It's okay. You just need to learn to see with your feet."

"No, I just need to learn to see with my heart."

* * *

Oh, God, I hated this one so much. The only reason I went on with it is because I wanted to write the next chapter so much. The next chapter will be called, 'Breathe Again' and it's very emotional. TT


	10. Chapter 10: Breathe Again

TEN: Breathe again.

**Make sure to check the author's note at the bottom.**

**SPOILERS FOR SOZIN'S COMET… though if you haven't seen it, yet – you call yourself a fan?!**

* * *

A bard that Sokka had once met on his journeys had once compared a battle to a beautiful, epic song. The brown-haired man had just laughed and shrugged, saying he didn't understand how a battle could be either beautiful _or _musical. But now, twelve years after Sozin's Comet, he could understand.

The wind that blew through the tall and ancient Earth Kingdom trees mixed in with the rustling of the leaves. Far off in the distance, a wood frog croaked, it's voice low and bass. Sokka's blue eyes slid shut as he crouched on a thick and proud tree branch. It really was like music. The footfalls of the approaching Fire Nation renegade thieves provided a strong and steady rhythm.

The renegade thieves were a small group of ex-soldiers who hadn't been happy when Zuko had taken the throne. They had sworn that they would try and keep the Fire Nation's sense of superiority alive. They had been getting their commands from someone who knew how to bend lightning and had passed on the skill. Speculation was that it was Azula, but no messages had been in and out of her jail cell so there was no evidence.

_Whoever is behind this – they'll soon find themselves without pawns, _Sokka promised, looking through the branches of the trees and towards the sky. Katara, Aang, and Toph were all piled onto Appa, waiting for Sokka's signal for them to ambush the deadly soldiers. He felt a swell of a mixture of pride and worry flood through him as he saw Toph's shiny black hair. He had told her it was too dangerous for her (he wouldn't loose her like he had lost Yue) but she hadn't listened and had promptly climbed aboard Appa.

'Promise you'll be careful,' he had demanded, sweeping his fingers across her cheek.

She had made a face, though it was easily smoothed as he gently pressed his mouth against hers. When he pulled away she had shrugged and had started to get onto Appa.

'Toph,' he had called, catching a handful of the fabric of her clothes in his fist. 'Promise me.'

'I promise, Snoozles,' she had told him, giving him a reckless grin as she tugged herself free. She took Katara's hand as it was extended towards her and climbed into Appa's saddle.

Now, he wasn't so sure if he should have let her go at all. But it was too late to cancel, now. His warrior paint was on his face, though it was starting to run down his face as a gentle patter of rain started to fall. The rain added a gentle pitter-patter to the music of the foreboding battle song.

The plan was that the group of benders on Appa would distract the men. Then Sokka, with his newly found sword (it had been returned to him by an Earth Kingdom man who recognized it as Piandao's work) would jump down and… well, slash them to pieces. He'd been instructed to leave at least one of them alive, though it wasn't guaranteed since they were dangerous men. Lightning was unforgiving.

_Go. _He held up a hand, his index and middle finger motioning towards the small band of Fire Nation men. This was the signal that meant that they were supposed to move in and start attacking.

Appa swooped down from the tree, rearing and growling as the tops of the trees snapped off and rained down on the unsuspecting men. Sokka had to force himself to wait as he watched the men blast hot jets of fire at his friends. No, not only his friends. The Avatar, his little sister, and his girlfriend. Plus, a big furry bison that meant the world to Aang.

Suddenly, the fire wasn't fire anymore. It wasn't orange and yellow and red. It changed, turning bright blue and crackling.

Everything happened in slow motion. Katara ducked as two piping hot bolts of lightning were bended their way. Aang redirected one of the bolts harmlessly away into the sky. Sokka thought the other bolt had missed its target, but soon it became clear that it hadn't. Aang, Katara, and Appa were all still apparently okay, but Sokka immediately noticed that a head of black hair was missing from view.

_Toph._

The world stopped. Sokka jumped from his spot in the tree, hitting the ground and rolling into a crouch. His meteorite sword cut cleanly through one man after another, until they were all lying facedown with blood leaking onto the damp leaves that were littered on the ground.

Appa landed in a clearing about a hundred feet away from where Sokka was standing. Immediately Aang gathered Toph's limp body in his arms, jumping down from Appa and laying her on the ground. Katara jumped out next, uncorking her water skins and coating Toph's upper torso in glowing blue water.

Sokka ran as fast as he could, jumping over fallen hollow trees and roots that broke through the damp earth. "Toph!" he yelled, skidding onto his knees next to her body. He touched her cold cheek, though his blue eyes were pulled to the charred hole in her shirt and the exposed flesh beneath it.

Someone was pulling at his shoulders, though he couldn't see who it was through his damp eyes. "Katara!" he yelled desperately, his voice strangled. "Fix it! Fix her!" The blue-eyed boy demanded as Aang dragged him away from the scene.

"Sokka, calm down," Aang pleaded, forcing Sokka to look into his gray eyes. "Let Katara work. It'll be okay."

He could tell Aang was lying. "No, no, it won't be okay," Sokka muttered, shoving past Aang and back to Toph's side. He picked up her lifeless hand and held it in his dark one. "Why isn't she awake yet?!"

Katara motioned the water back into the skins, crying now. "Sokka…"

"No!" He wouldn't accept it. He hugged Toph to him, shaking his head. "I won't loose her! You brought Aang back when Azula shot him! You can save her! _Save her, please, Katara! Please…_"

"Th-that was different…" Katara murmured, clasping her hands together and closing her teary eyes. "I had water from the Spirit Oasis…"

"No, fix her…" he pleaded, sounding like ten-year-old Sokka again. "You have to…"

"Sokka… her heart has stopped… I can't…" Katara cried into Aang's shirt as he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into her hair.

'… heart has stopped. His heart has stopped, get him out of the boat!' Sokka remembered his father yelling orders as a Water Tribe warrior was pulled onto the snow. He had fallen into the ice cold water during ice dodging. Somehow he had managed to wiggle out of his clothes that had been weighing him down, though it had made the cold affect him even more.

His dad had pumped his fists on the man's chest, blowing air into his mouth. Again. And again. Then again. Finally the man had shivered awake gasping, his heart restarted by Hakoda.

Sokka laid Toph flat on the ground, his fingers knitting together and pressing down on Toph's chest. After a couple compressions, he lowered his mouth to her lips, transferring air from his mouth to hers.

_Breathe… breathe again… _he begged mentally, removing his lips to do more compressions.

_I won't loose you… I lost Yue when she became the moon… I lost Suki when she started dating another man after we broke up… I won't loose you, too… You're the best thing that's ever happened to me… Breathe, Toph!_

There was a small gasping sound as Toph took in a breath. Sokka could feel her heart slowly beat underneath his palm.

"Katara!" Sokka called, hugging Toph to his chest. Katara slowly opened her teary eyes, before gazing down at Toph.

"What? She's – "

"She started to breathe again," Aang said, his eyes wide.

"Here, let me…" Katara pulled Toph from Sokka's arms, laying her down onto the ground. The water was pulled again from her water skins as she started to heal the hole in Toph's skin. "She'll be out for a while, Sokka…"

"I don't care," he said immediately, content to hold her hand for a moment. "As long as she's alive… as long as she's okay…"

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I'd like to dedicate these first ten stories to all the people who have reviewed this collection more than once. This includes: Caramel Crazy, number1waterbender, Evo422, Demonking101, da archer, Harlequin Jade, and imagine everything.


	11. Chapter 11: Memory

ELEVEN: Memory

Avatar: the Last Airbender is **over**. There will be **no book four**. Some people think there will be an 'Air' season, but there will not be. **Mike & Bryan answered the question** in an interview at the San Diego Comic Con 2008….

**This is continued at the bottom of the page.**

* * *

The water was cool beneath Toph's bare feet as she gently kicked her feet in the water. Sitting next to Sokka as Aang and Katara worked on their Waterbending (technically they didn't need to, since both of them were master waterbenders… but they did it for old times' sake) and as the Fire Lord was doing some push ups, she felt pretty confident that she wasn't going to have to use her feet to tell if anyone was going to sneak up on them or not. Zuko was good at telling if someone was near. It was like he had a sixth sense – it was scary sometimes the way he would suddenly look upward and then say that someone was approaching. She wondered if that was how everyone normally felt when she announced that someone was coming.

"Hey, Toph?"

It was Sokka who had called her, though even if she hadn't been able to feel the resonating sound of his voice through her palms, she would have known it was him anyway. Nobody had a voice like Sokka. "Yeah?"

He was looking at some scroll, though what it was, exactly, didn't interest her in the slightest. Paper was paper was paper… was _paper. _It was all blank. It all meant nothing to her. "Mmm… what's your best memory?"

That surprised her. She stayed quiet for a moment, thinking and vaguely listening to the sound that his feet made as he splashed them in the water. "What?"

"What's your best memory?"

She grinned, deciding to answer it with a tease. "'Boo! No talking!'" she quoted, cupping her hands around her mouth in imitation of him.

"What?"

"… That's what you said," she muttered, her cheeks flushing as she realized he probably didn't remember that. "At Earth Rumble Six."

"I know. I meant, 'What? You remember that? That's your best memory?'" he clarified. She could hear the rustling of paper as he rolled up the scroll, tucking it into a bag.

She shrugged. "Of course I remember it."

"That was years ago, though."

"So?"

"Right…" he muttered, before shrugging. "That's your best memory?"

Toph decided it was best to be honest at this time. Besides, this wasn't dangerous territory. He had asked her plenty of dangerous questions before that had ended in her blushing or shooting a rock at him. 'Who was your first kiss?' and 'Who would you rather kiss – me or Aang? Me or Zuko? Zuko or Aang?' Thankfully this talk session seemed harmless. "One of them."

"_Why? _You didn't even _know _me, then," he pointed out.

"Still." Toph pressed her lips together after that, determined to let it fall into silence.

But Sokka wasn't going to let their conversation die away as easily as that. "Still _what_?"

"Huh?"

"You never finished your sentence. You said 'still' and then you just stopped. I'm waiting."

She shrugged. "That was all of it."

He sighed. "Alright. So if me yelling at you to not talk is your best memory, you must have had a sucky childhood and you must have not enjoyed traveling with us _at all_."

"Hey, hey, Snoozles. First of all, I never said it was my _best memory. _It's _one of _the best, okay? I have a lot of favorite memories."

He leaned back on the rock he was sitting on, tucking his palms behind his head. "Okay. So what are your other favorite memories?"

"Umm," she squinted as she 'looked' down at the water, searching her mind. She named them off quickly and without thinking. "Metalbending for the first time, my first day with the badgermoles, the meteor, Sozin's Comet, teaching Aang Earthbending, the girl's day out with Katara, talking with Iroh, that one laundry day when you – "

Suddenly, she stopped. Sokka looked over at her, grinning as he noticed her cheeks start to flush. "Laundry day? When I… what? What were you going to say?"

"Nothing." She said firmly, pressing her lips hard together as if she was afraid it would slip out. "Laundry day. Fun times all around."

"No, you said something about _me. _What were you going to say?"

She shrugged. "Nothing. Anyway, Snoozles, I think it's time that I should go head off and… walk… somewhere…" Toph said, stretching as she stood. She pulled her pant legs down from where she had rolled them up when she had stuck them into the water.

"No, you have to tell me what you were going to say." Sokka stood as she did, shouldering his bag.

She scowled, quickly heading off into the direction of the trees that grew thickly around their camp. "I wasn't going to say anything. Can't you just drop it, Ponytail?"

"No, I can't," he told her, weaving through the trees. He had an inkling of which laundry day she was talking about, but he was going to make her admit it. "Tell me."

"No."

"Tell me." He made his voice high pitched.

"No."

"Tell me." Sokka changed his voice so it sounded mystical.

"No."

It went on and on as they walked through the trees. Toph's voice became more annoyed every time he whined for her to tell him. "Tell me!" he bellowed, making a few birds scatter from their perch on a tree branch.

"Fine! That laundry day! That you had to walk around shirtless for half a day! When I got a sticker in my foot and you carried me back to camp even though I picked the sticker out!" she yelled at him, her face red in irritation and embarrassment.

He blinked. "But you were in pain."

"But you took care of me."

"But you didn't need me."

"But you did it anyway."

"But you yelled at me."

"But you just kept carrying me."

"But you said you hadn't even noticed that I didn't have a shirt on."

"But I did."

Now it was _his _turn to blush and look away from her. "Umm. Right. Well, I think I'm going to go and… um… poke some stuff with my sword…" He whistled innocently as he started to back away.

Only as he glanced back at her did he notice that her face was angled towards the ground, her fists clenched in anger… and disappointment. His heart lurched for reasons he did not quite understand.

"Toph?"

"I thought you were going to go poke stuff." she accused.

"I am. I just wanted to say… that's one of my favorite memories, too."

* * *

**Continued from top.**

For the **interview** (although it's rather noisy from all the fan action going on) search YouTube for "**Avatar SDCC 2008 Q&A**" and click and watch.

I also recommend watching the "**Forbidden Love**" joke short, it's awesome and I recognized a lot of the art off of DeviantArt.

Some of the subjects covered (this info from Avatar Spirit): **Zuko finding Ursa** was actually storyboarded for the finale by Avatar Director Joaquim Dos Santos, but was nixed by Mike DiMartino - not really sure why. Avatar will be airing in order on Nicktoons "soon" - no date was announced though. The lion turtle taught Aang how to **spirit bend** (Bryan called it "unbending", but still not clear exactly what to call it). Aang can spirit bend or take other people's bending away at will, it wasn't just a one time thing. A new **Avatar MMORPG** will be coming out soon, presumably like World of Warcraft or Everquest. This won't be the last Avatar panel at SDCC. Mike made it clear that at least **the first live action movie** is a very faithful retelling of Book One: Water.

I also thought it was hilarious because they said Jet was in **hot guy heaven**.

**Holy crap that was long.** But I just wanted to clue in you guys who don't regularly visit Avatar Spirit or DeviantArt. I was two days late in finding out this info, fail. :S

Also: Note that I said that Avatar: the Last Airbender was over... not the entire Avatar universe. I still have hope that there will be more Avatar-related shows/shorts/etc.


	12. Chapter 12: Insanity

TWELVE: Insanity.

Can you blame me for thinking of Azula instantly? She fell off her rocker and isn't getting back onto it anytime soon.

* * *

"Come on, Toph."

"I don't want to see _her._" Toph growled, dragging her feet as both the tiny Earthbender and her tall friend headed towards the Fire Nation prison. Azula's cell was guarded by man guards and she was to be constantly chained up and never let down. Toph knew why. If she got an opening, she'd take it.

There had been some speculation that recent attacks on Earth Kingdom shipments had been ordered by the princess, though there was no proof. Zuko, who was away visiting Katara, had asked Sokka and Toph (who were the closest to the Fire Nation at the time, Toph being on her way home to Gaoling and Sokka headed back to the South Pole after Suki and he broke up) to interrogate Azula.

"I don't want to see her, either. But Zuko asked us." Sokka muttered, pausing at the thick metal doors until one of the guards unlocked it and held open the door for them.

Toph made a _hmph _sound, following him into the building. "I don't get why Iroh couldn't do it."

"He's busy being the fill-in Fire Lord while Zuko takes his sweet time visiting Katara." Sokka said, his forehead creasing as he rounded a corner. "I don't get why out of all the girls in the w- Oof!"

Toph had reached forward, grabbing Sokka's collar and jerking him back. "Hey, Snoozles! Crazy's _this _way." She told him, letting go of his collar and jerking her head in the opposite direction. "Unless you wanted to visit her dad…"

He flushed in embarrassment that he had gone the wrong way, walking side-by-side with his friend. "I don't really want to visit either of them."

"I know."

"I hate them."

"I know."

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as they paused outside of Azula's heavily guarded cell. "Aang thinks they can change, but… I don't think they can."

"We'll just have to wait and see. And don't worry. I'll protect you in there." Toph said with a grin, kicking the heavy metal door open with the help of her Metalbending.

"_You'll _protect – " Sokka started to scoff, but reluctantly followed Toph into the cell. Azula looked… blank. Her hair was in her face, her wrists securely chained behind her back. She was looking at them, though her eyes weren't focused.

"So, Crazy, how's cell life treating you?" Toph strode forward, keeping a few steps away from Azula just in case.

Azula looked up, an insane smile on her face. "Better than home life is treating you, I assure you. I'm still a _princess_, I still have followers."

"Which is why we want to talk to you. Why did you send your followers towards the Earth Kingdom shipments?" Sokka fell into place next to Toph, stepping out of the shadows.

"Oh, is that you?" A grin came to Azula's face. "I remember you. _Where's Suki?!_" It was scary, the way her voice lowered as she imitated Sokka's voice on the Day of Black Sun. "I don't see her with you. Have you found a new girlfriend?" Her eyes rolled over to Toph. "Oh. There you are. Picked you up rather quickly, didn't he, after having discarded his Kyoshi Warrior _so eagerly_?"

"Toph is _not_ my girlfriend." Sokka scowled, his fists clenched next to his side.

"No?" Azula taunted. In a half a second she had leapt up. There had been hidden slack in her chain behind her back, so as she lunged towards Toph she knocked the small girl off balance. Her hands, normally bound together behind her back, had two shiny metal cuffs on that connected to the walls. Azula brought her left arm around Toph's neck, her right arm swirling blue lightning around. "If she's not your girlfriend, then I can kill her!"

Sokka's hand tensed towards the empty sheath where his sword used to be. He missed it, especially in times like this. "Let her go!"

"Oh, but _why?_ It would be _so _much better to see you all angry again… funny, it took you _weeks _to be this concerned over Suki… but here you are, right now, ready to kill me if I kill the little blind brat…"

Toph's feet were stretching to try and reach the metal floor of the prison cell, though she was being held up (and choked) by Azula's left arm, currently. She gasped as she tried to kick backwards towards Azula, her facial expression full of panic.

"Toph!" Sokka growled, starting to take a step forward.

"Keep going, if you want her dead." Azula hissed.

"Let her go!"

"No, I don't think I will. Shall we place bets on how long it takes for her to loose consciousness from lack of oxygen?"

Sokka's fingers twitched. He wanted to get his newly crafted boomerang, but he didn't dare try to reach it. His eyes were locked on Toph's, his anger and fear plain on his face. "Stop it!"

"Shall… we…" Toph struggled out the words, her hands trying to tear at Azula's strong grip.

"What was that?" The Fire Nation girl hissed. "I didn't quite hear you! Must be because I'm cutting off your air supply… Hmm."

"Then listen up, Crazy," the blind girl spat, her expression fierce even as her cheeks started to turn a deep shade of red. "… how about… we… take bets on how… long it… takes me to… knock you out? … Sokka… what's your… guess?"

He was still too shocked to speak, sure his friend was about to die.

"My guess… is four seconds…" Toph muttered, before tearing her hands away from where they had been trying to stop Azula from strangling her completely. Her right arm shot out towards the wall of the cell, her palm colliding with the metal.

_Bam. _

A piece of the metal prison wall tore itself away with a horrible screeching sound before promptly smashing the Fire Nation princess into the wall.

Toph fell to the floor, clutching her neck and gasping for air. Sokka was next to Toph in a second, pulling her out of Azula's range. Even if she was knocked out, he didn't want to endanger her anymore. "Toph, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have let you get that close to her, you could have been killed, you could have been _killed _and it would have been my fault and – "

"Shut it." Toph choked out, her chest pumping as she slowly caught her breath. "If it wasn't me, it would've been you."

He held her against his chest, noticing for the first time how truly small she was. "I'm sorry…" he whispered into her hair, closing his eyes and rocking slightly. "I should have protected you…"

"Sokka…" Toph pulled away from him, though her eyes were still locked onto his chest since it didn't make a difference where she looked. "You have. You _did_. You _are._"

His grip on her tightened, pulling her against his chest again. "And I will. I _will _protect you. I don't want to loose you… I'm so sorry… I should have protected you…"

That day Sokka made himself a mental promise as he held Toph silently to his chest, cradling her. _I'll protect her. Forever. I couldn't protect Yue. Suki didn't want me to protect her. I'll protect Toph. When she needs a friend I'll be him… when she needs a big brother to punch the boys who make her cry and break her heart, I'll be him… and when she needs someone to hold her… I'll be him, too… _

_I'll be him. I will be that guy… for _her.

* * *

Umm. And Azula had cuffs on that were chained to the wall. She just didn't have them chained behind her back because she had been eating. And it's hard to eat without your hands. And c'mon. Azula's the psycho girl who can manipulate people like you would not _believe. _I can imagine her cooing, 'Oh, won't you _please _leave them unchained from my back? They hurt my shoulders so much… aww, thank you… such an honor to have you in the service of my brother Zuzu…' to the guard.

And I'm guessing she'll regain her sanity (a little, at least) in jail. Or grow crazier. Whichever. Obviously she's become more reckless in this story, since she doesn't think through the fact that Toph can _metalbend._


	13. Chapter 13: Misfortune

THIRTEEN: Misfortune.

* * *

"I'm getting married."

She had never known that three little words could change a person's world so drastically. Toph hadn't even been the one who had said the words. The Earthbender wasn't the one getting married – her _mother _was. After her father's death, the remaining members of the family had discovered that Lao Bei Fong had been hiding some debts from his family. Well, no. Not _some _debts – _lots_ of them.

By the time the family had paid most of the debts off and paid for his funeral service, they had to fire most of their servants because they didn't have enough money to keep them employed. Toph's mother had only seen one way out: either she got married or Toph did. Toph couldn't understand why her mother hadn't told Toph to find a suitor, since she was nineteen, but she had just announced to Toph one day that she was accepting the offer of a wealthy Fire Nation man.

Fire Nation.

The move from Gaoling to the Fire Nation wasn't going to be a pleasant one. It was going to take an absurdly long time to arrive with all of their remaining belongings, since there was no air bison to quickly fly them there. Toph sighed as she heard a knock on her door, pausing in her packing.

Slumping to the door, she pulled it open. "What?" she demanded, her mood sour today.

"V-visitor," stammered one of the few remaining servants. He quickly bowed and backed out of her room. "I-in the garden. Sorry for disturbing you, Miss Bei Fong."

The black-haired young woman was scowling as she walked into the garden, though the creases in her forehead smoothed immediately as she realized who was waiting for her there. "Sokka?" she asked, surprised.

He turned, grinning at his friend. His hair was longer now, shaggier. It reminded her of the late Hakoda's hair. "Hey, Toph!"

"Why are you here?" she blurted out without thinking.

"I'm visiting you." He said, sounding slightly offended. Why didn't she want him to visit her?

Toph slowly nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. "Okay. Um. Take a seat."

He looked around, noticing for the first time that all of their stone benches that used to decorate the garden were gone. "Where are – "

"Oh. Here." She struck out with her arms, drawing a wide bench up from the earth. "There you go. Sorry."

"What happened to your benches? And what happened to your _house_?" she could tell from his incredulous voice that he was looking inside the house, where servants were wrapping up all sorts of pots and fine furniture.

"I'm – no, _we're - _moving," she said with a sigh, shoulders slumping as she stared blankly at the ground.

"Oh." He scratched the side of his nose, thinking. "Where?"

"Remember the town where Aang went to school?" Toph asked dully.

"Mmm…" he searched his mind, thinking back all those seven years ago. "Yeah. The one with the cave." He remembered how she had Earthbended raised stands for the musicians.

"Right. Well, my mom and I are moving there."

"What?" he asked, his eyes going wide. When she was in Goaling, it didn't take him long to visit her if he had a boat with him. Maybe a day or two's journey. But now, if she moved all the way to the Fire Nation, it'd take him a _week_. At _least._ "Why?!"

"My dad left us debts. My mom is remarrying for money." Sokka couldn't figure out if she decided ashamed or scared. Maybe both.

He looked at her blankly. "If you need money, why didn't you ask me? Or Zuko? He's got a whole _room _full of gold trinkets I'm sure he'd be happy to melt down for you."

"Since when have I ever wanted charity?" she asked, trying to grin over at him. "The Blind Bandit never asks for help."

He sighed. "Sure you have."

"Have not."

"Yeah, you have."

"No."

"Yes."

"When have I ever asked for help?" she challenged, looking over at him.

He sighed again. "I remember you yelling help when you fell into the water at the Serpent's Pass. Or was that someone else who looked exactly like you?"

Her face burned. "I blocked that from my memory." Toph told him. It had been embarrassing enough that she had made Suki jump into the water to save her, but also that she had mistaken her for Sokka and had given her a kiss on the cheek. She'd rather forget that memory.

"Really? Why? Because you asked for help?"

"No." She picked invisible lint off of her sleeve, not intent on elaborating.

"Then why?"

"Because…" she paused. _Might as well tell him, Toph. You're moving a long way away from him, anyway. And it's been years. Just tell him. It was stupid and you were kids. _"Because I kissed Suki on the cheek."

"… What?" he sounded confused and a little startled. "You mean _you _liked – "

"No!" she cut him off, her cheeks burning again. "No! I didn't like _her_! I thought she was _you_! You yelled that you were coming in to get me, then someone was in the water. I thought it was _you_."

He blinked. "You were going to kiss me on the cheek?"

"You would have just saved my life."

"Damn." _I should have jumped in there._

She scowled. "What?"

"Nothing. So, you're moving… Are you sure there's nothing I could do?"

"I don't think so. Unless you want to build a new house for me." She joked, shaking her head.

But Sokka's face suddenly lit up, a grin stretching across his features. "That's it."

"What's it?"

"I could build you a house!"

She blinked, before scowling again. "Stop it. No, you couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Well. One – you have no Earth Kingdom money. Two – you'd have to buy _land _first, something that's in scarce supply. Three – how am I supposed to live in this house? I don't have a _job_. You'd give me a house that I'd have to sell. Four – "

"No, no." he said, briefly placing a dark hand over her mouth to muffle her as she listed her reasons. "I could build you a house in the Water Tribe."

"… what?" she asked as he removed his hand, stunned. "Why would you build me a house there?"

"Because you need a house. I'm chief. We could build you a house, easily. You live there. You'd never be poor or have to marry some guy you didn't want to or -"

"Or be able to Earthbend. Or feel my toes."

He frowned. He hadn't thought about that. "I think there's land underneath our snow. Some land. So you could Earthbend. And you would get use to the cold. Think about it, Toph! You could either live with your mother in some Fire Nation guy's house, completely unhappy. Or you could come live with me and Katara. Aang visits a lot. So does Zuko. It'd be like old times. You would be happy."

It was tempting. So tempting. She'd be with her friends and all the people she loved and she could even Earthbend. But her mother… "I don't know if I should just leave my mom all alone with some guy she doesn't know."

"But you left her when you were travelling with us." He pointed out. "She'd be fine. If you want, you could go with her to the Fire Nation. I'd meet you there. Once she's settled and everything, I'll take you to the Southern Water Tribe. Okay?"

She bit her lip. It would probably be better that way… she couldn't see herself being happy as she moped around this Fire Nation man's house. Toph rose from the bench. "I should go ask her."

He grinned as he watched her walk back into her house. He was sure her mother would say yes. And even if she didn't – Toph was _nineteen. _She didn't have to follow her mother's orders anymore. Not that she ever did, really.

Sokka couldn't believe it. Toph was going to live with him. Er, with him _and _Katara. Yes. He felt his heart soar in his chest. He would get to see her every day. He couldn't believe it. After Katara, Toph was the person he was closest to. Maybe he was even closer to Toph than his own sister. He wouldn't have to go a week or two without seeing her, anymore. She'd be there every time he woke up and every time he went to sleep. At breakfast she would be there. Lunch. Dinner. On fishing trips.

_I'm the luckiest man in the world. I just convinced the woman I love to come and live with me._

* * *

I don't like this one, either. It turned out so differently than I imagined. I'm going to have to train my fingers to write what I want them to write, darn it.


	14. Chapter 14: Smile

FOURTEEN: Smile

He loves her hair and her personality and her laugh. But most of all, he loves her smile.

* * *

Her smile was always there. He could tell. Even when she was angry, she'd get this little twitch in the corner of her mouth. It was like she didn't know whether to grin at the idiot who had offended her or to promptly toss a rock in the direction of their head.

Her smile was brilliant. Her teeth were amazingly white. Katara had even been a little jealous, the brown-haired girl had confessed a few years down the road. 'They're so _white_. And she doesn't even brush them four times a day or anything! Some people get all the luck.' His sister would rant. Her teeth were white, as well, though she brushed her teeth very well three times a day.

She had so many smiles.

The triumphant smile for when she beat him in sparring matches. The evil smile for when she had a plan that she didn't tell anyone about. The sickeningly sweet smile that she gave when she wanted to appear innocent. The cocky, smirky smile when she knew she was going to beat someone. The laugh smile. He could go on and on and on.

But his favorite smile was the one she used when it was just the two of them. It was softer than the other smiles as it slowly spread across her pale face. Once, when he had been feeling especially bold, he had dared to trace it with his fingers as it formed.

"What are you doing?" she had wanted to know.

"Shh," he murmured, fingers touching the corner of her mouth as her grin softened. "Don't talk."

"But – "

"No. Shush." He said firmly. She rolled her eyes but the smile didn't stop spreading across her face. "No talking."

She had waited patiently (if there was one thing about her, it was the fact that she could be still and wait like no one else he knew) as he had carefully traced his fingertips around the outline of her mouth. Her lips were soft against his mostly-clean fingers that still smelled of the salted meat he had snacked on.

Once he had finished, he pulled his fingers away from her and instead took her hands. "So what were you doing?" she wanted to know.

"Getting to know your, um, smile."

She laughed. The laughing smile. "You're weird, Snoozles."

"Thanks. Coming from the girl who sees with her _feet_, it means a lot."

She shrugged, moving so that she sat next to him instead of across from him. "What do you mean, you were getting to know my smile?"

"You have a lot of different smiles. I was tracing."

"You were tracing… my smile?"

"One of them," he explained, aware of how cheesy he sounded.

She stayed silent for a moment. "And which smile were you tracing?"

"The one that you use when it's just you and me."

"Oh." She grinned, this time it was the sneaky smile that she used when she had a plan.

"Mhmm," he agreed.

"You know what I call that one?" she wanted to know.

He shrugged. "No. What?"

"The Sokka Smile. It's yours and yours alone."

He smiled, an arm snaking around her shoulders. "That's fitting."

"Really? Why?"

"Because Sokka is yours… and yours alone."

* * *

Yeah. Not all of these stories are going to be miles long. This one's pretty short. But sweet. And yeah, Katara's jealous of Toph's teeth?


	15. Chapter 15: Silence

FIFTEEN: Silence

* * *

Travelling with a person was different than living with them. When living with a person, you didn't get to know all their faults _and_ good points. They woke up, got pretty before joining you for some sort of breakfast, then they both went to work or out to do errands. When travelling on the road, it wasn't like that. When you woke up, they were there right beside you. You knew bad things about them like their funky morning breath or how their hair stuck up when they awoke. But somehow, it had managed to strengthen Toph and Sokka's relationship instead of weakening it. _It makes us seem more human, _she had decided one day as she was adding her headband to her dark hair. _We learn more stuff about each other._

And boy, did they learn.

Toph learned that Sokka shaved once every two days. He always took off his right boot first, then his left. His favorite color, surprisingly enough, wasn't blue. She could go on and on with all of the facts she learned about him. Especially years after Sozin's Comet, when he was the only one travelling with her. All of her attention was focused on him all of the time, so she noticed more things about him.

Like the fact that the Water Tribe man was, in fact, capable of travelling in silence.

Toph thought _she _was good at being quiet, especially when she was Earthbending. But sometimes, Sokka would put her to shame because he was so good at being quiet. It wasn't that he would ignore everyone, it was that he was just good at not talking whenever he was doing something else.

Like now, for instance. They were walking towards the coast of the Earth Kingdom, where they would eventually get onto a boat to go and visit the Northern Water Tribe. As they walked side-by-side, Sokka gently took her small hand in his large, dark one.

Silence.

He slowly rubbed circles on her soft skin with his thumb, though he kept his eyes on the road ahead. Toph kept her eyes wherever she wanted; it didn't make a difference. His fingers curled around hers, still stroking softly.

Silence.

He drove her crazy as his lips were pressed together. How could he not say anything?

Silence.

"Say something!" she bellowed at him, shattering the silent moment with two little words. Sokka looked startled as he looked over at her.

"What?"

"When did you get so good at being quiet?"

He looked amused now, grinning at her. "Are you saying I used to be _loud_?"

"Yes." She said without missing a beat.

"So did you." Sokka said thoughtfully, nodding at her. "Now you're quieter."

"I wasn't loud." She said defiantly, scowling at him. Well, in his direction, anyway. She was _blind_, after all.

He nodded, squeezing her hand. "I remember when you were teaching Aang Earthbending. I could hear you pretty far away."

She fell into silence, then, which surprised him. He had thought she would defend her loud-mouth, though she didn't. She just looked at the road ahead for a long while. After about five minutes, she surprised him by squeezing his hand. "I like us being quiet."

"Yeah?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"

"Cause it gives me time to think without _your _mouth to interrupt my thoughts."

He then leaned down to her, proving that talking to her wasn't the only way he could interrupt her thoughts with his mouth.

* * *

Sorry that this took a while. I started school yesterday. I tripped down some stairs. It was pretty awesome. So if I'm not updating this thing every week or so, you know why. Blame it on prison! I mean, uh, school. I should have time to update my stories every weekend, but this is just a general announcement so you know I haven't forgotten about any of my fics.


	16. Chapter 16: Questioning

SIXTEEN: Questioning.

I revamped this. As I went back and reread the stories, this one felt out of place. Also, someone else critiqued me on it (thank you! Without you it'd still be rushed) and so I decided I should probably update and fix this.

'Katara and Sokka both interrogate Toph, though for completely different reasons. Set during "The Runaway." Katara's lines are taken directly from the show.'

* * *

Out of all of her friends, Toph decided that Sokka was the one who knew her best. He was also, by some twist of fate, the one who could annoy her the most. Today, as they walked back from picking up new things to cook, she couldn't decide if he was annoying her or not.

She was leaning towards being annoyed because of his endless questions. Toph decided finally that his questions were sort of welcome. They were better than an awkward silence, at least.

"So how did you learn how to scam people, anyway?" he questioned, shifting his bags. He had_ insisted_ on taking the heavier bags, even though she was perfectly capable of carrying a larger amount than she currently had.

She shrugged. "Gaoling is a big town, Snoozles," Toph told him. As her Earthbending detected a rough patch in the road ahead, she silently flattened it out with the softest movement. _She _would have no problem traveling over the uneven ground, but she didn't want Sokka to stumble. "They have all sorts of, um, activities going on after the sun goes down."

He wanted to know how she knew the sun went down, but he didn't. Toph was full of mysteries. "So you gambled?"

"No," she snorted. "I just hung around a bit after being the Blind Bandit. I learned how to scam them, but never did it."

The Water Tribe boy was quiet for a moment. "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what? Being the blind bandit?" Toph asked absentmindedly. She couldn't quite remember if they were supposed to turn left at that boulder or right…

"No. Well, yeah. Do you miss being the Blind Bandit? And do you miss Gaoling?" he asked thoughtfully, his serious questions a rarity for the Southern Water Tribe boy. They unnerved Toph. She wanted jokes and sarcasm back, not questions about what she missed and didn't miss.

She stayed quiet for a moment, her lips pressed together. "I'm _still _the Blind Bandit. I always was. Toph Bei Fong, the daughter who didn't exist, was who I left behind in Gaoling. And Gaoling was just… a whole mess of memories. I don't miss my parents. They never got to know me."

But they both knew she was lying. Luckily for her, Sokka recognized his friend's need to lie. Someday, probably, she would be ready to acknowledge that she _did _miss her parents and that she _did _miss some other things, too. But that day was not today, so the boy would wait.

"Your parents weren't very smart. They never got to know you. And they never let anyone else get to know you, either."

She was sad as she spoke, though her expression dared him to be sorry for her. "For twelve years, nobody knew I existed except for my parents and some servants."

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly. This conversation was getting too serious, too forced for his liking. He cleared his throat.

"So do you miss the South Pole?" Toph supplied this new conversation, which he was grateful for. Serious subjects weren't the best subjects for him to discuss, especially not with the people who had only ever seen him laughing and grinning. Toph hadn't seen him after Yue, hadn't seen him when his dad left…

"Yeah," he admitted. His steps slowed as he walked, imagining ice around them instead of the dirt and trees. It was easy to conjure up this illusion, since he had spent so many years hearing the crunch of ice and snow underneath his boots.""I miss Gran Gran. And the snow. And the food."

"How can _anyone _miss the food? If everyone there cooks like Katara, then... how are you not dead?" she questioned, making a face as she remembered the time Katara had tried to reconstruct a Water Tribe meal with Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation ingredients. It had not been a memorable experience for _anyone_. Even Katara admitted it was lacking and had promptly tossed the food out. "Ugh. And snow? It's too cold."

"Hey! Water Tribe food is great! It's hearty and delicious." Sokka objected, scowling. "How do you know what snow feels like? You lived in the _Earth Kingdom_."

She turned sarcastic. "Gee, Sokka, it's not like we have a _Waterbender _in our group. Who makes ice and snow." Oh. He had forgotten about that. Snow had fallen when Aang and Katara had helped quench the meteor's fire… and Toph had once walked on ice, too.

"That's not _snow_," he protested. "That's _fake snow_ that has been bended out of _water_. It's not real."

Toph snorted. "It _felt _pretty real. Still, it's snow, isn't it? It all feels the same. It's all water. It's all been frozen. It's the same thing that nature does, just… sped up a little."

She didn't understand, she couldn't. Snow didn't belong out by a _meteor. _It belonged all together on the ice. It was supposed to be paired with sea prunes and Gran Gran and furs. "It's not, Toph. You haven't seen snow until you've gone to one of the Water Tribes."

"It's the only snow I'll see, so it's snow."

Sokka didn't stop talking, even though she had a look of annoyance on her face. She had several kinds of anger, he had learned. Fake annoyance, real annoyance, grumpiness, anger, fake anger, tired anger, tired grumpiness… "You'll see snow one day, Toph. I'll take to you to the South Pole."

She snorted in amusement. "When? We're kind of supposed to be defeating the Fire Lord right now. I don't think we have time for a vacation. Unless we want to defeat Ol' Pointy Beard with some penguin power or something."

Oh, true. It would have to wait until after the war was over. "After the war. I'll take you to my home. You can meet my Gran Gran. And my dad will be there, too." He could only imagine his grandmother's reaction to Toph.

"I've already met your dad. We talked about water. Or maybe it was waves. Or something. Anyway, I've already met him."

He remembered. The Day of Black Sun… a day he would sooner forget. Whenever he thought about how close they had been, he always had to stop himself from wincing. "I know. He liked you."

"Yeah?" she asked, grinning. She bumped into him as they walked, probably bruising his hip. He had lost count long ago of how many bruises Toph had left him with. Probably dozens. "What'd he say?"

_That you were cute and dangerous. _"Nothing," he answered quickly. Too quickly. She looked dissatisfied with his answer and opened her mouth to say something else to him.

But, thankfully, she never got a chance to ask him about what else his dad had said. She never managed to learn how Sokka had nodded absentmindedly to his dad with a soft 'yeah.' She never got a chance to ask him about how his dad had just grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

Sokka had never been so happy to see his sister. Or so irritated. Because it meant she would never get a chance to learn how he had flushed after his dad had clapped him on the shoulder.


	17. Chapter 17: Blood

SEVENTEEN: Blood.

* * *

Blood was something Sokka was okay with. Growing up on the ice, blood was a bright red flag that caught your eye. It might have been a seal that had her pup. It could have been a wounded warrior. Or maybe it was Katara, who had cut her finger open helping Gran Gran.

But the blood was _not _okay when it was coming from Toph.

Toph hated blood. She hated the smell of it, thick and metallic and salty. She hated the feel of it, warm and sticky and wet. She hated the _drip-drip _sound it made when someone had been cut. She hated it. She would rather wait and pass out than have to feel the shudder-worthy smell and feel of the warm, thick liquid.

But Sokka was _not _letting her pass out. He kept pinching her hand to keep her awake as he worked on… ew, dare she even say the word? _Sewing _her leg shut. Sewing it! With a whale bone needle and some kind of strong thread. As if she was a piece of cloth.

"Are you done yet?" she demanded, her eyes closed and her fingers pinching her nose off. She could still smell the blood, somehow. It made her head swim and her stomach protest. If she could have rolled on her side and thrown up, she would have just so her stomach would be empty.

"Hold on," he said, his voice frustrated. She realized he sounded frustrated because not five seconds had passed since she had last asked that question. Yet she had to say something to fill the silence! Otherwise her thoughts went to the blood and the warm feelings and the –

"Say something," Toph begged, clenching her mouth shut. When she spoke, she could almost taste her blood in the air.

Sokka frowned. Something splashed onto the dirt from his forehead. Faintly she realized it must be sweat. But what was he worried about? He wasn't the one who was having his leg sewn shut. "What do you want me to say?"

"Just say something. Anything. Ask me how I think the weather is. What my favorite color is. Just – just say _something_ to distract me."

He wasn't used to talking when he was sewing things up. He was usually sewing himself up. When he was about twelve, he had first sliced his hand open by accident when cleaning a fish. The scar had healed nicely, so you couldn't even see it anymore. But he had been alone on the ice when it had happened, so he was the one who had to make the tiny sutures. He wasn't used to having to sew other people up… Katara usually just healed them.

"Okay. Uhhh, how was the weather today, Toph?" he questioned absentmindedly, trying to wipe away the drying blood from her now-closed wound.

"It's pretty good," she said through clenched teeth. "But it's going to rain soon. I hate the rain. It messes up my Earthbending. Everything blends together and looks the same and I don't – "

"How do you know it's going to rain?" he asked, incredulous. There was nothing but an open expanse of blue sky above their heads. There wasn't even one tiny little cloud floating anywhere near them.

She scowled at him as he finished cleaning her calf up. "I can smell the rain," she told him, trying not to think about _smelling _right now. The blood smell was still thick around her, now mixed with the onion-y smell of Sokka's salve. "What are you putting down there?"

"It'll stop your leg from becoming infected," he told her, spreading the cream colored salve on her almost equally creamy skin. "Haven't you ever heard of getting tan, Toph?"

"Sorry I'm not dark enough for you," she murmured, her head feeling like it was being squeezed by the Boulder. "I don't like walking around in my underwear as much as you do. My legs don't get tan."

"Maybe you should start," he suggested absentmindedly, rolling her pant leg back down. Only as silence filled the air did he actually realize what he had suggested.

She stayed silent, before standing slowly. Her leg must have been burning with pain, but she didn't so much as wince or even clench her jaw again. "What?"

His ears burned. "Sorry. I didn't mean it. Of course I wouldn't look at you in your underwear. I mean, not there's nothing to see – I mean, of course there's not _nothing, _you're _seventeen_ – I mean – "

He was sure he knew the meaning of _digging his own grave _right now. But there would be no digging of his grave. She could just cock her neck and it would be dug for him via Earthbending.

"Shut up," she demanded fiercely, starting to stop off into some trees. He could see her calf muscles ripple in her anger, tiny droplets of blood oozing from the slice into her skin. "I'm going for a walk. Go back to camp."

He had scowled at himself then. "Nice move, Sokka," he told himself as he started to place his things back into his pack. "Next time just tell her she's flat-chested. That'll get you killed quicker."

Traveling with Toph wasn't like traveling with Katara. He had been traveling with her for about a year now, but she was still a mystery to him. He could remember passing through Gaoling and going to visit her…

"Sokka!" she had cried, her arms going around his neck as she hugged him. It was weird feeling. She was softer and curvier and – no. He couldn't think of her in that way. Suki was in the past, but he wasn't ready to try and think of _another _girl in that way. Not yet.

"Hey," he had said with a smile. He had been surprised at how easily it had been to smile around her. At first he thought she would hate him for not visiting or writing as often as he should, but she wasn't. Her enthusiasm had made his week-long stay at her house seem short.

The last day had been the best. "Take me with you," she had told him. It wasn't a request, it was an order. "I won't be a burden. You know I won't."

How could he have resisted that? Resisted _her_ when her face looked like that? Hopeful and smooth and perfect. "Alright," he had caved in before another heartbeat propelled his blood through his body. "I guess."

Most days he didn't regret it. Most days he didn't say anything stupid like that to her. Most days passed with sunshine and laughing and having fun. Most days were filled with him slowly falling in love with her.

Except for today. Today he had hurt her. And there was only one thing he was supposed to do when he hurt someone. Apologize.

Apologizing was easier said than done. First, he had to actually find her. As the sun started to dip under the horizon, he started to get worried. He tried to imagine what she would say if she was there.

_Sokka, _he imagined she would start. _I'm not five. I can take care of myself. I'm a Metalbender. I can do it. Trust me._

_I do trust you, Toph, _he imagined himself replying. _I'm not worried about you because I think you're incapable. I'm worried about you because I like you. A lot. And I worry about people I love. Like. Love. No, like. Yeah. Like. A lot. Maybe love. I don't want to scare you away. I mean, not that I could scare you away. You're not easy to scare._

Sigh. Even his version of himself had a tendency to babble when he was torn between liking her as a friend and loving her as more.

Lightning cracked across the sky, lighting up the pale pinks and dark oranges of sunset. It started to sprinkle at first, but in a few seconds the light patters of moisture turned into heavy, unforgiving rains. "I'll never doubt you again, Toph," he muttered, the rain plastering his dark hair onto his forehead.

He found her not long after the rain had started to turn into bruising hail. Her skin was what had caught his blue eye – a pale flash among the green and browns of the trees. Her inky hair was as wet as his was, though she had tried to take shelter beneath a tree.

"Toph!" he called out in warning, remembering what she had said about the rain. Scaring an Earthbender probably wasn't a good idea. Especially when it was Toph. Her head cocked towards him, her lips pressed together tightly. He wondered what it would be like to touch her lips, if his own could coax them out of being so tight and defensive.

"Snoozles," she called, standing. Even when she couldn't 'see,' she was still more graceful than he could have thought possible. "I told you it would rain."

He smiled slightly. "You were right," he admitted, reaching for her. He had meant to help her over the roots so she wouldn't stumble, but something… changed as his hand went out to her. Instead of his fingers wrapping around her forearm to help her, they glided over her arm.

She froze, as if she could sense his sudden increase in heartbeat without even having her Earthbending to help her. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you," he insisted, his cheeks flushing. His fingers wrapped around her arm now, pulling her towards him. "You're getting wet, Toph. We need to get somewhere safer. And don't you know that standing below a tree in a storm is a bad idea?"

She shrugged and raised her hand. At first he thought she was going to punch him for touching her or something, but after a sharp motion a rock shelter formed above ground. A tree groaned in protests, its roots starting to poke through the soil a bit.

"There. Safer."

He scowled at the small size, but figured it was a smaller target for lightning. It was awkward inside of the shelter. His back was pressed against the hard rock, Toph shoved up against him. "Couldn't you have made it a little _bigger_, Toph?"

She _did _smack him then. "I told you, it's hard to see when it's raining. I didn't want to move some tree and make it squash us. We're in a _forest, _Snoozles."

He shut up then, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the top of the shelter and the sounds of their breathing. He was aware of how close she was, how her back was pressed against his chest and her hair was near his nose. His heart increased. She was so close. So, so very close.

Sokka leaned in, hesitating as he touched his mouth to the area just below her ear. They rested there softly for a moment, before he pulled back. His heart pounded in his chest so loud that he was sure she could hear it, rain messing up her Earthbending or no.

To his surprise, she slowly turned. Her eyes were wider than normal, but somehow also… softer? He wasn't sure. Maybe it was a good thing. Or maybe she was just deciding on how to kill him.

"Sokka?" her voice was quiet and unsteady, something he never would have suspected from Toph.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, Toph?" His voice matched hers… why couldn't he hold his sentences steady? It'd make this a lot less awkward!

"What… what did you do?" she paused, slowly lifting her fingers to brush the area where he had kissed as if she wasn't sure it had happened at all.

"I kissed you," he muttered, ducking his head. She couldn't see his face, anyway, but he disliked the blush that was spreading across his cheeks.

"Why?" Toph seemed confused for some reason. He blinked. Didn't she know how much he liked her? He guessed not. Maybe he was good at hiding it… which he thought was a bit of a bad thing.

Sokka twisted his fingers, mentally smacking himself over and over. "Because I wanted to."

"Oh," she muttered. Her voice sounded satisfied now. Stronger, more sure of herself. More like the old Toph that he knew and loved. Loved. There was that word again. Sokka wasn't sure if he liked it or not. "Okay."

_Okay._ He smiled slightly, looking down at her for the first time since he had blushed. She was also blushing, he noticed. Her pale hand reached up to hesitantly touch his cheek, her fingers stumbling over his flushed cheek.

She seemed to become irritated at something then, her delicate features pulling into an expression that clearly said she was irritated at something. "Hmph," she muttered, stomping with one foot. A small platform of earth shot up from the ground, Toph propelled upwards until she was level with Sokka. "Better."

Her fingers pulled his face closer to hers until their lips were so close he could feel her breathing. Though Sokka knew it was still raining outside, he wasn't concerned with it. All he cared about was the storm going on inside of his head at that moment and how it was quieted as her lips softly, warmly, perfectly, _finally_ touched his.


	18. Chapter 18: Rainbow

EIGHTEEN: Rainbow

Sokka examines Toph. Meh. This one annoys me. I might rewrite it later.

* * *

If you had asked him a week ago, he would have associated two colors with Toph. Black and green. Or, if he was feeling thoughtful – black, green, _and_ white. (Clever!) Those three colors summed the tiny Earthbender up perfectly, he was sure of it.

Now, there was only one thing he was sure of.

Toph had a _rainbow_ of colors that he associated with her. He had never felt more grateful for her blindness than he did right now, when he was eagerly searching her face while she rested for a moment. There was a flash of white where the sun beat down on her already pale cheek. Cream for the rest of her face. A shadowed bit was almost a grayish white, like when Katara burnt the rice some days. There was the lightest touch of pink for her cheeks, barely noticeable unless you were _really _looking.

And Sokka… he was _really _looking. Like a prisoner of war seeing the full moon for the first time in years.

In her hair… he had to count on both hands _twice _to count all of the shades. There was a shiny gray color where the sun tagged a ring around the black waterfall. Pure black near her ears or underneath her headband, with various shades of gray and charcoal in between. There was – whoa. There was even some dancing flickers of yellow and orange in there, from the pulsating fire.

Unconsciously, he leaned in closer to her, his knee brushing hers as he fought to get a good look at the barely visible strands of her Blind Bandit outfit. There was a funny patch there, one that was darker than the –

"Can I help you?" her voice was too loud in the clearing, attracting the attention from both Aang and Katara. Though they had been chattering like hog monkeys for the past twenty minutes, the Avatar and the Waterbender both glanced towards Sokka.

"Uhhh," he swallowed, his ears starting to warm. "No. I was just… I saw a rainbow. In the sky."

Katara's head snapped towards the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of the colors. They reminded her of the dancing lights they sometimes had in the South Pole and she liked the small reminder of her people. "Where, Sokka?"

He blinked, shrugging as he stood and stretched. "Never mind. It faded, I guess. Weird."

"Weird," Aang agreed, happily going back to chatting with the first girl he had laid eyes on in a hundred years. He could care less about some disappearing rainbow when Katara was right in front of him. Sokka's sister gave him a slightly suspicious look, before turning back to the Airbender.

"I'm going to go see where Momo scampered off to," Sokka announced a few minutes later, after he had finished lingering awkwardly around the camp.

So the Water Tribe warrior turned, heading into the thick forest around them and away from his rainbow.

* * *

Like I said... meh. It annoys me. But hey, they can't all satisfy me. XP Suggestions to make it better?


	19. Chapter 19: Gray

NINETEEN: Gray.

Sorry I'm slow. But happy holidays!

* * *

_Swishswishswishswish._

Sokka's boomerang sounded like a panting dogmonkey to him as it flew to one corner of the room and then back again. The trusty boomerang, along with his beloved meteorite sword, had been recovered (thank the gods!) and returned to him via the citizens of the Earth Kingdom. Though Piandao had assured him that his sword had served a majestic last purpose, the Water Tribe boy still felt better once he held it in his arms once more.

"Sokka!" There was a thud of boots tearing through the house towards him. He recognized Katara's voice instantly; years of living together could do that. Even though they were all at peace now, the Gaang was residing in their own house in Omashu. Aang liked spending most of his time with Bumi now that the old man was pushing one hundred and twenty. So was Aang, technically, but nobody noticed _that…_

Ouch. Something smacked him on the head as he was lounging back on one of the home's comfy seats. His blue eyes lazily looked towards his sister, her equally blue eyes glaring.

"Get up, Sokka. Listen. Toph and I were out shopping – "

"_Again? _Just because you're with the Avatar doesn't mean you can spend all of the – "

"Shush," Katara urged, scowling again with her hands on her hips. She looked like his mother when she did that. "Toph and I were out shopping when I saw a man making sculptures out of wet clay. He asked us if we wanted to try and Toph – "

He imagined Toph trying to make a sculpture out of wet clay. She probably made a perfect replica of Omashu in less than five seconds, complete with the pottery maker working on a pot or something. Sokka grinned faintly. "I bet she showed him up."

"No. He said she had to learn to do it without Earthbending, otherwise she wouldn't be satisfied." Katara said quietly, and then glanced over her shoulder as if she was afraid that Toph would walk in unnoticed. Impossible. Did his sister really think Toph could walk into a room without him noticing?

"How'd that turn out?" Sokka stretched, mildly interested in the story. He bet Toph would learn it quick. She was good at a lot of things. Maybe pottery making was something else she was good at.

His sister winced. She opened her mouth to speak, but something cut her off. It was the excited pattering of small feet on the wooden floor of their temporary home.

"Sokka! Katara and I met a pottery maker and he showed me how to make sculptures!" There was no mistaking the excitement in Toph's voice. She reminded him of a child on her birthday. She sounded like she knew the day was going to be all about her and couldn't be more satisfied with that fact. The Earthbender's breath was hitched, though he couldn't imagine why.

"Look!" Toph was thrusting something into his hands. He paused, blinking as he evaluated the pudgy gray sculpture that had suddenly been deposited into his palms.

It wasn't pretty. He guessed that Katara had tried to warn him to pretend that it was amazing so that he wouldn't hurt Toph's feelings. As if he needed warning… he would never hurt Toph. Ever. She was the last person on the planet he could bear to see sad. As if he could actually be the one to _cause _–

"What do you think?" Her eyebrows knit together, dissatisfied with the time he was taking to come up with the appropriate response

Sokka smiled. "It's amazing, Toph."

As if he could hurt her. As if he could damage the smile that gracefully, effortlessly matched the one that mimicked his. As if he could do anything but love her.


	20. Chapter 20: Fortitude

TWENTY: Fortitude.

Sorry I was MIA there for a while. School kicked my butt after winter break. Good news, though: I'm on my spring break, so expect another chapter or two.

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"Fortitude," began Master Piandao, looking grave as he went through some fluid movements with his sword. Like a moving rock, slowly rolling from one position to another. His path might not be as fast as it once was (since the master was approaching a graying age), but he would get there eventually. "Fortitude is a strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain, or adversity, with courage. Today, we will work on our fortitude."

Sokka nodded, mimicking his master's movements. His muscles stretched and bowed, preparing for the vigorous workout they were accustomed to. Every morning, Sokka started out his day by training with his old master. Sometimes he would go spar with Suki, though that hadn't happened lately. Her new boyfriend always stood near them, his thick eyebrows frowning the whole time… he almost laughed, imaging –

"Are you focusing?" Piandao asked suddenly, recognizing the far-off look in his student's eyes. Whether he was thinking about meat or girls or something else entirely, he didn't know. But he knew that Sokka needed to be focused.

"Yes, Master," he said, frowning.

Piandao sighed, sheathing his sword. He coughed once, before speaking. "Sokka, I don't think you're focusing," he said, his voice unnaturally loud. The dark-skinned man paused, tilting his head to the side as if waiting for something.

"Yes, I promise, I'm – " Sokka began, flushing slightly as he, too, sheathed his sword. "I was just distracted for a –"

"Shh," Piandao shushed, clearing his throat. "I said, 'Sokka! I don't think you're focusing!'"

The Water Tribe man blinked, bewildered. Was Piandao going senile in his old age? He paused, approaching his master cautiously. "Master Piandao? Are you alright?" Clearly, something was wrong. "Do you want to take a break or someth-"

Sokka didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, as the ground wavered beneath him. He glanced down, unsure of what was happening but knowing he should move as quickly as possible if he wanted to avoid getting swallowed by the earth.

Moving quickly didn't seem to help him at all. The ground caved, burying him (and his recently recovered meteorite sword) up to his neck. Panic flooded through him. There were no Earthbenders on Kyoshi Island, how was he supposed to – and then the panic was soothed by the sound of laughter. It was in-your-face laughter.

"Toph!" Sokka yelled loudly, several emotions weaving through his head. He was a bit annoyed, first of all, because she chosen the worst moment to interrupt his training. Embarrassed, of course, because he had been so easily distracted and captured. Happiness was there, too, because he hadn't seen his old friend in years. Something else was waiting patiently, too, buried under the rest of the emotions.

"Hey, Snoozles," came a voice, one he scarcely recognized. He had last seen (and heard) Toph when she was fourteen, so he hardly recognized this voice that actually sounded… _old. _"How're you?"

He scoffed, craning his neck to see her standing a few feet away. "Uncomfortable. Could you do something about this?" Sokka questioned, aware of just how tight the dirt was around his chest. "I can't really breathe."

"So quit talking," she suggested, before blowing the hair out of her face in concentration. This woman before him had the same black hair as his Toph. The same eyes, the same green clothing. But she had grown a little taller, a little more… hip-y. Like some cross between a young Ty Lee and a fourteen-year-old Toph. He frowned, feeling awkward as she stood before him.

Toph paused, before giving the ground a swift, glancing kick with her heel. The man felt earth rise up to meet the bottom of his shoes, propelling him upward. He closed his eyes, expecting to be rocketed a few extra feet higher than he needed to be. She used to do that a lot, hurt him when he didn't need to be hurt… Instead, he was gently set on his feet.

He opened his eyes, surprised. "Nice work," Sokka complimented lightly, watching the stranger's hand as it reached to brush his tunic off.

"You've got some dirt on you," she told him, grinning. The stranger transformed. There she was. His old Toph with the same mischievous smile and the same amazing talents. "How'd that get there?"

"Oh," he said vaguely, glancing around for Piandao. The man had vanished, though, evidently satisfied with the way he had introduced Toph. "I don't know. You want to take a walk with me while I try to find out?"

Another grin. She nodded, rubbing her arm. His blue eyes trailed up her arm, noticing that there was a dark arm band against the pale skin. "You kept it," he said, surprised. It had been nearly seven years. Why would she keep it?

"Yeah," she said with a shrug. "Why wouldn't I?"

"It's old," he said with a nod, beginning to propel his feet forward on one of the many dirt paths around Kyoshi. "I thought you would have traded it in for something else."

"You don't trade in something just because it's old," Toph scoffed, frowning at him. "I haven't traded in you for a new friend, have I, old man?"

Sokka laughed, almost painfully aware of just how much older than her he was. "Right," he agreed. "Thanks for keeping me, Mighty Toph."

She grinned again, playfully punching him in the arm. But it wasn't a hard punch, it was a soft one. Her knuckles gently grazed his skin, glancing off to the side. "I'll always keep you," Toph assured him. "Don't worry. You're my best friend."

His lips pulled into a grin. "Good," he said, tossing an arm around his friend's shoulder. "I'll keep you, too. You're my best friend, too, Toph." And yet. The word seemed… inadequate, with the way his heart was skipping and jumping at her words.

* * *

Eww, this was gross. I'm really rusty, my skills have definitely declined a little bit. I guess it's like riding a bike… so bear with me. And sorry about the uploaded-three times thing.


End file.
